You’ll never feel ready to start the hard chapter. Start anyway and let ready catch up.

Readiness is mostly a feeling produced by familiarity, which means it arrives after you begin rather than before. Waiting for it in front of something hard is waiting for a signal generated by the very thing you are not doing yet. That is why people can prepare for months and still feel exactly as unready on the first day.

Set a start that does not depend on how you feel. A time, a page, a first small task you are allowed to do badly. Ten minutes in, the feeling usually shows up on its own and acts like it was there the whole time.