Here's a secret not everyone knows about the inner workings of the mind:

It doesn't follow the same rules as the world outside your head.

In the mind, things can't be fixed, turned off, ignored or avoided.

Don't believe me? Here's an experiment: Do not think about a yellow postbox.

Aha! You did. And the more you try not to, the more you'll think about that darned postbox.

Experiment, if you like to. Take one minute of just doing whatever and note every time you think of a yellow postbox, then take another minute and concentrate fully on not thinking of the postbox. Compare the number of times you thought of that postbox in each minute... And, if you managed to think fewer times of the postbox when you concentrated on not to, what did you accomplish instead, what did you think of instead? I spent my minute 100% focusing on a green apple, but I fear that isn't going to get me far in life...

Now for the good news.

What happens inside your head has nothing to do with what happens outside your head until you decide to act on your thoughts and emotions.

Yes, there are a few evolutionarily conditioned emotional responses that are in fact reflexes, but they are way fewer than you think - but that's a different discussion.

So, how do you deal with self-doubt, fear, anxiety, etc?

You don't.

The trick is to live your life and do what you want/like/have to, while still having these things going on in your head.

I'm sure you've been in situations where you had to deal with the outer world while the inner world was in turmoil; mid-terms, asking that special person for a date, being in a relationship, taking care of children, etc.

You do this by accepting that things in your head are going to happen and that you can't control them (Yellow Postbox!), that you do not have to have 100% control of the mind in order to make things happen outside of it.

The next step is to have a plan, like an exercise or a new habit. I've seen several good examples of that among the other answers to this question.

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