Recently I started learning VHDL. I have some very personal pep talks... look to your own past for something more applicable.

  * "you've learned over 20 languages"

  * "this won't be as annoying as brainfuck, Piet, or FRACTRAN"

  * "you've absorbed the basics of analog circuit design, this digital crap is gonna be easy"

And then it's all about setting reasonable goals, breaking the work into discrete chunks and tackling them in an orderly fashion.

  * my coworker whose FPGA board I'm using tells me "just get to a point where you can turn on an LED with a switch and it's downhill from there"

  * I tell myself, "your algorithm is a series of interconnected state machines.  Figure out how to make a state machine and it's downhill from there"

And then there's the expertise I have access too -- I know that memory and timing issues are going to be a nightmare. When I get to that point. When I get to that point, I can worry about the PCI bus and API. At that point I'll have the basics down, and I'll be able to have more fruitful discussions with my coworkers and they'll take a greater interest in my work.