It would be great if we never felt insecure or anxious or scared when we had to do things like ask for money or refuse a request or even just get on with writing what we're supposed to be writing. But this sort of discomfort can be really hard to shift, no matter how much we work on our confidence and how many affirmations we scribble on post-it notes and stick to our monitor. It can be tempting, then, to think that we need to put off doing the hard things until we've got a few more years of therapy under our belts. But - and hear me out here - what if we just did them, even though they're horrible? What if you could ignore your discomfort and just get on with life? If you're game, friend, your Imperfectionist cheerleader has some words of advice to help you get started.

Here's an (admittedly quite old) article summarising research on affective forecasting and the like: We don't know our own strength

Reference:

Wilson, T. D. and Gilbert, D. T. 2005: 'Affective forecasting: knowing what to want', Current Directions in Psychological Science 14/3: 131-134.