Have you ever stopped to wonder why we sometimes don’t do the things we really want to do?

For many years, statistics have shown that at least 8 out of every 10 people want to write a book. Why, then, do so many not follow through on their writing dreams?

But the problem is not just out there. It’s in here, too. We can think of times when we shrank back and didn’t follow through on our goals. Is it laziness? Lack of discipline? A lack of talent?

No, it’s usually just self-doubt. Even if the logical side of our brains tells us we can achieve it, self-doubt creeps in and we hold back. The novelist Sylvia Plath once said, “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Self-doubt seems like a relatively mild concept, but let’s call a spade a spade. Self-doubt is just fear in disguise. We don’t doubt ourselves because of any rational thought process. We’re just plain old scared of failing.

So take courage. If you’re working on a big goal and you have a good plan for achieving it, don’t get sidetracked by negative emotions. That fear you’re feeling is just a ghost, a mirage, a phantom. There’s nothing it can do to hurt you, and if you ignore it, it will eventually go away and haunt somebody else.