Ever see a squirrel run out in front of a car, look into the headlights—and freeze?! When fear kicks in, we humans are just like squirrels. There’s a scientific reason you can feel glued to the ground when you wish you were running full speed ahead: When something scary comes into your awareness (say, an imagined moment of face-planting during track tryouts), a part of the brain called the amygdala sounds the alarm. It tells the body to fight back, to run like heck, or—most commonly—to go numb and freeze up.
To overcome the paralysis, you need to calm that panicky response. “First, take a deep breath,” Schab says. “You need to send oxygen to your brain so you can think more clearly.” Think about the smallest step you could take toward your goal. If your goal is to get published in the local newspaper, maybe you can just open up a document and write a headline. That’s it! Tomorrow, you can write one sentence. And with every day, you’ll regain confidence and tell that twitchy amygdala it can sit this one out.