If there's something I'm dreading, I try to find something exciting that'll happen after the dreaded event.
Take, for example today. I had a college orientation of sorts, and I was kinda dreading it because I don't know ANYBODY at my school and I'd be spending an entire day with them. And it takes a while for me to warm up to people. So I was a little nervous. But the entire time that I was dreading it, I kept thinking "Just get through today, and then the next stop is Kenny Chesney's concert on the 19th." That helped a lot. Although today wasn't bad and awkward as I imagined, it helped during the days before when I was kinda dreading it.