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Shrink the first step until it takes two minutes, and do only that.
The wall is usually the size of the first step, not the whole task. Make the step tiny enough to fall over.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We shall show you the easy way (Quran 87:8). There is an easy way in; shrinking the first step is finding it.
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Breaking a goal down to a tiny, specific first action makes starting far more likely; the size of the opening step, not the whole task, is what predicts whether you begin.
Gollwitzer, P. M. and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology doi
Across many studies, forming implementation intentions has a medium-to-large positive effect on goal attainment.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A very small, concrete first action bypasses the resistance that a large task triggers.
Where this sits: Executive-function support; implementation intentions.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
When you get something hard done, resist waving it off with "anyone could have done that". Let it count.
The other way through fog is to walk into it. Start badly, on purpose, and let the shape of the thing appear while you are working on it.
Promise yourself twenty minutes, or one podcast episode, rather than a finished result. Then the end is guaranteed however badly it goes.