The psychology of being stuck

All week I floundered on a paper. It's one from my PhD that was really in pretty good shape in my thesis. I just had to extend the data analysis I did for the thesis, edit the text based on the new statistical results, and then do some other editing to include literature that has been published in the last two years (TWO YEARS since I defended! Reallly?!?!?!). Relatively straightforward, right? And that's good because the publishing plans of other groups is motivating me to get this thing out now.

I couldn't figure out how to do the analysis. I knew what I wanted to do conceptually, but I couldn't figure out how to execute it. The papers I found were like, way beyond my level. I found some helpful advice in some stats forums, but it wasn't specific enough to my problem. Finally on Thursday I talked with my old advisor, told her what I had figured out and where I was stuck, and we came up with a plan to move forward that puts the ball in her court for now.

The interesting thing is that once we figured out what to do, it became clear what else I could do on this paper that doesn't involve the stats results. All week I had been feeling like I couldn't do anything else until I had these stats nailed down. That's partly true because the outcome will have a big impact on how we tell the story. But, there are some sections that don't hinge on that outcome. I was just so caught up in my imposter syndrome that I couldn't see all the things I could do. Why do I (repeatedly) let this happen?