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I understand how you feel after getting input from so many instructional videotapes. A while back I was doing the same thing: classes from different instructors, videos from other teachers, books and online input from everyone else under the sun. My mind was a mush.
What worked for me was to choose the ONE instructor's method that seemed closest to my natural way of working and then paint that way. (For me it was Tony Ryder.) I still find myself incorporating suggestions here and there from everyone I ever learned from, but at least now I have a single methodology that I follow, a way to start and proceed with color.
You can learn a lot about paint handling and seeing color by doing still lifes. I think that's a great way to go. One way to get over your fear might be to make up a pile of 8x10 canvases and do one each day, even if all you have is an hour. Paint every gosh darned orange, apple and vase in the house!
I like the advice you've had here from others to start with a limited palette, when you do decide to attack portrait work in color. Rubens and many others are said to have done all their flesh tones with white, yellow ochre, Venetian red and black. That will take you a long way.
Good luck!
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