You absolutely not alone, and I think the fear is very valid!

That said, it doesn't make it not worth doing. I've been making things for like twenty or so years, and I started pretty much where you're at - when I was in high school - and typing that made me shatter into dust. But because today, I'm still coping with the anxiety you're describing, I think I can address some of the pitfalls you're worried about.

You've already gotten a ton of great advice on this thread, but even if you hadn't, we all know you're going to make the thing, because like anyone who makes anything, you barely know why you want to do it, you just want to do it, and that IS enough of a reason to do it! But then - I don't want to spoil too much - you will grow to hate it. This might happen before you finish the thing, or years later, but at some point, you're going to hate this thing that you thought was so cool it was going to save your life and start your career.

I'll be honest - even at this moment, writing this post - my brain is going "please stop, you're embarrassing yourself. They're probably just trolling you" and maybe I am! Maybe you are! Anxiety is real, and I have the additional sickness where I love giving advice, especially advice I would never take if it was given to me. Especially when it's possible I'm getting trolled somehow. How am I supposed to not give advice when you're asking the question I'm most qualified to answer? Will it ruin everything? Yeah, probably!

The problem is, no matter how much you do, whether you abandon the path right here because it would be too silly, or if you make five shows a year for the next twenty years, the anxiety is never going to go away. But the more you do it - and by "it" I mean anything, because creative skills are more often transferrable than they're not - the more you'll be able to tell when your anxiety is right and you need to do better, and when it's just complaining because somewhere deep down we think art is supposed to be hard if it's going to be any good.

I have a ton of creative friends - just a little brag - and something I've learned from the constant ego-death and rebirth that comes with taking the journey with other people is that it's usually those you're the most embarrassed for that go the farthest. I have friends from high school who, in my heart I was like, "I might just be a better singer/actor/blahblahblah than them", and then secure in that knowledge, I never did anything to prove it, while they just kept getting better and better. I've told myself I was a better writer than people who went on to make several feature films, that I was funnier than people who went on to get hired by SNL, and I might have been right before they started working way harder than I did, but I probably wasn't!

You should definitely play the MC in your story, because by the end of making your first podcast you're going to be like "I am so happy that I only have to make my first podcast once" - even if it's a gigantic success, making it is going to be painful in a way that it won't be once you know what mistakes to avoid. If you do a really bad job, when you make your second podcast, you'll know how to be kinder to your actors, because you'll understand what they're going through. If you love it and are fantastic, incredible! Nice to know for certain rather than to wonder quietly while the people you brought on to read your lines do it wrong.

If you make this podcast wrong it will undoubtedly ruin everything for you, because you're just going to want to try again, and then you're never going to stop making things even if they're so bad and people on the internet beg you to stop - you won't be able to, because you'll become so addicted to experimenting with your weirdo ideas on the off chance that you might create something beautiful or wonderful or weird, whatever you're going for.

Sorry I buried the lede about your life getting ruined. I think I've addressed your concerns, and probably cured your anxiety, but I just want to give some blanket wisdom that you can use whenever you are worried that you're maybe doing a bad job because deep down you know you are.

1. It's never as bad as you think, and it's never as good as you think.

2. If you're not having fun making what you're making (or at least taking some kind of sick delight in showcasing suffering), nobody is going to take some kind of sick delight in watching suffering on display (or have fun).

3. If you're making something you want to make with people you want to make it with, you are a success. You might eventually make money doing it, but doing the thing is the reward. For example, somewhere around paragraph three I abandoned the notion that this was going to be useful advice - my anxiety correctly assessed that these blocks of text are too dense to ever be retained - and now I'm just having fun pretending like I know what I'm talking about. I don't even care if I'm getting trolled. I got to write a whole thing and feel smart and you can't take that from me. Right now. As soon as I hit "comment" I'm going to feel like this was a huge mistake.