What's Scarier than Freddy?

I hate doing things that scare me. I'm not talking about the kind of fright that comes from watching a scary movie, or walking through a graveyard at night by yourself, I'm talking about the things that could expansively impact your life, change everything as you know it. Yeah, those things; they frighten me more than Freddy ever could and I'm a complete chicken#$@! when it comes to forcing myself to fight through it. I've been needing to go back to school for at least five years and now that I have the applications in my hands, they've just been sitting in my room for weeks blank because what if I turn them in and I get a big fat no? My good ole frenemy rejection is whispering in my ear, telling me there's no way any of these schools will want me, because what have I done to deserve getting into their programs? I don't know how to fight through the fear; it's why I've been stuck for the past five years in almost the exact same place while everyone I know around me has been running towards all of the milestones of the late twenties, early thirties. I am done with being left behind, but how do I get myself in the race? How easy is it to overcome crippling self-doubt? If the paralysis is self-inflicted, how do you convince yourself to move?