Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly

From The Up Side of Down by Megan McArdle, page 10. In the context of self-handicapping, which I have seem many people do:

"Work finally begins," says Alain de Botton, "when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly." For people with an extremely fixed mind-set, that tipping point quite often never happens. They fear nothing so much as finding out that they never had what it tales.