Moving past anxiety when applying for jobs?

I know this is a problem many have faced, I've faced it before but I'm really struggling now.

My "career" has been a bit scattered. I went to college for speech pathology, but didn't get into grad school and it wasn't what I wanted to do anyway. So I went back and finished out another bachelor's in business. Took the first job I got after graduating, which is just a research admin job. I actually do enjoy it but the pay is not great and there really isn't much opportunity for advancement. I do get good benefits, and one of those is the chance to take classes for free, so I was taking courses in college student development hoping to go into new student services or academic advising. But, that field has a high attrition rate because of high demands and low pay, so now I'm rethinking even that.

I have some experience with technical writing as I've written several manuals for my current position, so I figured I'd try to get some hits on like Upwork doing some freelance gigs and try to build a portfolio. But of course I keep thinking "I can't do this". I'm so afraid that people are just going to laugh me right out of the interviews. I had two messages this morning, one was asking for a writing sample (which I provided) and the other wanting to set up an interview, and I responded but I am terrified.

I have a tendency to get really spooked and go into avoidance mode and obviously that's not good. Any tips on how to deal with this?

I just said yes to an interview in about 30 minutes! :scared15: Currently internally (and externally) freaking out.

Oh Poppy! Hope it goes really well.

Thanks, Catkins. It went really well actually, but that's almost scarier to me! She admitted she had considered me for more of a post-editing thing, but after speaking to me was "impressed" and was very interested in my ability to do the writing. That's an awesome thing, sure, but now I'm feeling like I will just be a big disappointment if she does reach out (she's talking to others so said she'd reach out in a few weeks).

She's been a tech writer for 20+ years and others on the project have been so for longer. She said she liked that I had less experience so would be easier to "shape" but ugh, I feel like such a poser.

That does sound good.