In Eric Githen's book 'The Heart and the Fist,' he describes a fellow Navy SEAL going thru BUDS training with him. This SEAL would tell himself several times a day, "I'm going to quit today. But first I'm going to finish this one exercise. I'm going to do just this one exercise, then I'm going to quit."

He never quit. He always found just one more thing to do.

You article incorporates two strategies: 1) breaking daunting tasks into doable steps, and 2) maintaining optionality -- i.e., the choice to carry on or quit.

I think both might be important to doing those things that scare you.