There is nothing to fear except falling out of the hammock and the neighbors laughing at me.

I promised I would get back in to school brain after the 4th and I am. I was up on campus yesterday cleaning out files for Phi Alpha Theta and making the official switch to president. I took care of paper work for my senior thesis, or I started to. I made inquires about adding a religious studies minor to my degree, and started reading my summer reading books.

I sat down today to write up my senior thesis proposal. I tried. I've got two words on the screen.  All of a sudden I realized what holds me back. It isn't laziness or procrastination. It isn't stupidity or lack of knowledge on a subject. It isn't work ethic. It isn't writers block. It's fear. Pure fear.

I hold myself to a higher standard than I think other students do. It's not bad, but it means that I am my hardest critic. I take constructive criticism seriously and seek to utilize it. I want to grow and improve.

At times I think I am held to a higher standard by my professors as well. I probably wouldn't be as paranoid about this had I not been friends with one of my t.a.'s who basically told me that because I am in the honor society he expected a higher level of work from me and because of that may have graded me a little harder than other students.

The knowledge that not only do I expect more, but so do others scares me. Mistakes scare me. Admitting that I am not perfect is easy, being corrected on a mistake is not.
How do I fix this? I need a full time editor on staff. 
Maybe I just need to get over myself and once again, get out of my own head. Shut off the chatter and just do it.

Two days later-

So, something clicked in my brain. I don't know what it was or how. I have some suspicions, but I don't know how much I can or should post here since there is some cross over between my personal life. The basic realization is that my confidence has been shaken. I was seeing someone who I admired professionally. While we were together, he did a great job of bolstering my confidence, and when the personal relationship fell apart I think it took some of my professional confidence with it. If this is all the stumbling block is, then I can get over it. I am sure it's not all of it, but it certainly has been holding me up the past few months. I am not lazy or a procrastinator. I am afraid. This has been translating itself as me putting off work and then rushing to crank out substandard work, that isn't a good reflection of my work and no one is happy grading and I am unhappy turning in.

I can get over this!

Good news. All my panic about writing my thesis proposal was for naught. I realized its essentially the work that I had been doing in my research methods class all semester. I just have to put it together and hand it in. Imagine a research project is the same thing as thesis proposal. If I haven't said it yet, I'll say it now, I am so fortunate to have taken that class, with that professor, this semester. I couldn't imagine a better situation and I will take the skills I leaned and use them for the rest of my life.

All that being said, I've got reading to do and a very hot pug to hose down. Poor little guy.