Easy to forget when discouraged, and annoying to be reminded of when filled with dread:  

Each thing you dread, that you manage to do, will remind you that the dread is almost always worse than the actual doing of the thing you dread. Often, doing the thing you dread turns out to be nothing at all.

Can you feel the weight of dread lift off you?

Not in advance, of course not, it’s unimaginable.  But afterwards, probably so.