First of all, if your research progress is slowed by fear of statistics, your are certainly not alone. Being afraid to "mess-up" your stats, and thus your project, is a common lament. But I'm here to tell you that your project is not that fragile! Once your data is collected, entered, cleaned, and ready for analysis, it is time for excitement, not concern! The golden rule here is: BACK UP. I'll say it again: BACK UP. In case I haven't been clear so far BACK UP! By this I mean back up your data. Make double, triple, and quadruple copies of your dataset and KEEP THEM IN DIFFERENT PLACES (e.g. on a server, on an external hard drive, on a flash drive...etc). It doesn't do much good to keep back up copies in the same place as your original, because if something goes wrong where your data is located, the back up copies are likely toast too!

Backing up your data aside, there is little else than can go catastrophically wrong with your analysis. Let this knowledge give you the courage to jump-in and work with your data. "Figuring it out" is a valuable part of the analytic process and can leave one well prepared to answer their research questions. I often joke that when things go "too smoothly" during analysis, I likely got lucky somewhere along the way and I may not be so lucky next time. How will I know how to deal with the road blocks of data analysis if they've never come-up before?

Armed with the knowledge that each road block gets you closer to the answers to your research questions, fire-up SPSS (or your preferred statistical package), bust-out your stats class notes and stop being afraid to screw it up, because everything can be undone. After all, you've backed-up!

Editorial Note: Stats Make Me Cry is owned and operated by Jeremy J. Taylor. The site offers many free statistical resources (e.g. a blog, SPSS video tutorials, R video tutorials, and a discussion forum), as well as fee-based statistical consulting and dissertation consulting services to individuals from a variety of disciplines all over the world.