I’m afraid. Every day I feel afraid. I’ve learned to live with it, managing to shut the fear out and focus, but the beast eventually returns. Learning to live with fear has been so hard to do.

It gets better. The first time I did this the highs were super high and the lows super low. I saw how it affected my mood and personality. My spouse let me know as well...

Being aware of it is the first step. Then you seriously just have to start realizing it's a roller coaster and a valley will be replaced by a peak. You'll go mental if you don't.

The other thing to ask yourself is why are you feeling so scared? Are you worried about failure or is it something else? Assuming you don't have a ton of your personal assets wrapped up into this, startups aren't that risky. Tons of great hires come out of failed startups. You'll work again. You'll make money again. You'll be fine.

That all said, anxiety is normal. Don't add to your stress by beating yourself up over it.

You're no alone if that helps at all.

You aren't alone. But exercise and meditation help; as does not working every minute of every day. take time to enjoy your family and enjoy your life so that if it does fail your entire existence doesn't go with it. Also when you realize most startups fail, that should help.

Let me tell you when you can get afraid. Its when you are stupid enough, like I was, to take out personal loans for your startup and it fails. I went into bankrupty and had no job. Thats when you can officially get really afraid.

Until then, enjoy the ride. Go to some meetup or other group with people who do similar things and share some war stories, it helps.

"The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage" - Thucydides.

Courage doesn't mean the absence of fear. Courage means that, when you are doing something you believe in, you feel the fear, look it straight in the eye and proceed with your vision.

Source: personal experience.