schwa
...My problem is that I am afraid of recording.  It seems every time I hit that red button, I am left with disappointing results...

I had a band for 40 years. Every time I got up on the stage, I would be nervous, since I wanted it to be a great gig. My son is an excellent musician (Trpt, Clar, Sax, Keyboard, Drums) now living in Japan. We are collaborating on several songs. He recently sent me a .wav file of a drum part, but later said that he wants to do it over. He stated that as soon as he hits the record button he would tense up. Here’s someone that has played professionally in my band since he was 12 years old (now 48).
You’re not alone. Like the man said, “Just do your best!”
Walt

schwa
I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum, but I have been wrestling with this for many years. 
Sonar is a wonderful tool, and so much more powerful than when I started with Cakewalk Audio many years ago. 
 
My problem is that I am afraid of recording.  It seems every time I hit that red button, I am left with disappointing results.  In the past, I have blamed it on my tools - that I am missing some plug or instrument, or that my mics or pres aren't "good enough". 
 
Well, I have run out of excuses, I can't blame it on tools anymore. 
 
I'm not sure if anyone else has faced this problem, but I'd be interested to hear how you got past it.

 You are not alone. I refer to the record button as the suck button.  In this age most people just edit instead of retakes.

Try recording without a click and using Set Measure/Beat At Now to align the timeline after the fact to facilitate editing, arranging, punching in, adding MIDI tracks, etc. if needed. Having to follow a click adds to the tension and can make you rush/drag in an unnatural way, and more extremely than you would when 'marching to the beat your own drummer' as it were.
 
And whether you record to a click or not, having the project tempo set where you naturally play the piece when performing freely can be very helpful. This is how I set the project tempo after rehearsing for a while to get the natural tempo going in my head:
 
- Disable Stop at Project End in Track View Options if it isn't already so you can run the transport in an empty project.
- Start playback (preferably by Spacebar) with no click sounding, count off a couple-few measures in your head at the tempo you've been playing, and stop the transport on the next downbeat.
- Shift+M to open Set Measure/Beat At Now, and enter that measure and beat.
- SONAR will set the tempo to make the specified beat fall on the absolute Now time where you stopped the transport.
 
In an empty project with low latency audio buffer, the start/stop of the transport should be pretty much instantaneous so you get a very accurate tempo.

I can not tell you how many times I have asked the artist just to run thru the take for me to get levels and warmup a little. Little did they know I record every time they play or sing just because you never know when something magical will happen just on that one verse or chorus or solo! Most times, we usually get the keeper in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours, simply because they are not aware that the light is on.
I have many friends who are both amateur and professional level players and singers that suffer from the same feeling. It is completely natural to have those feelings. After playing in groups for years and never even thinking about being nervous, I found myself wrestling with stage fright when I downsized to playing solo with tracks! There was no one else to rely on up there! No one else to blame mistakes on! And you feel as if everyone in the room can hear your heart banging away like a drum! You just have to do the hard work ahead of time which means practice, practice, practice until you can perform in your sleep. The self confidence will come the more you do the work. You are in the beginning stages of your development as an artist, engineer, producer. It is a long road and a lot of train wrecks along the way but if you are serious about your art, you will succeed.
Don't worry about the light being on. It's just a bunch of pixels!! You are in control of it! It does not control you! I have had to remind myself of that more times than I like to admit. I wish you luck and I am eager to hear that first of many tracks that you will be cranking out in no time!

+1 to what Sid just said. Don't tell them your recording and you get the most natural take of the session.
 
I highly recommend picking up a Tascam or Zoom handy recorder.. They are only $100 and indispensable for catching ideas and learning to relax on the couch.
 
There might just be something overly intimidating about sitting in front of a massively powerful DAW with unlimited possibilities. A simple little recorder on the other hand, is very un intimidating.  
And unlike a cell phone, the quality can be first class if you place it just so.

Its the fact that we know "tape don't lie."  When we are performing we usually are not able to evaluate the performance that much and wrong notes just evaporate into the ether never to be heard from again (except in my case where I will make the same mistakes over and over again.)
 
But when we are recording, we know that every mistake we are aware of when we play and all the ones we aren't are going to show up on that recording and be forever captured (or at least until we hit CRTL-Z or punch record over it.)
 
For me, I really try to not worry about the first mistake I make and any subsequent ones I make because I can record another take, punch in to fix the mistake, or edit the track.  Once you realize that a mistake is not the end of the world and its actually part of the process it becomes easier.  At least it does for me.

Another piece of advice, if I may. It is very easy to obsess over things like," I'm not using the $1000 compressor plugin that Chris Lord Alge uses", or now that you recorded you just can't find that "HOLY GRAIL" guitar tone from the latest 14 fingered whiz kid guitar player album!
Don't get caught up in second guessing your workflow. Find something that satisfies you as well as it can and move on!!! All this power and gear and edit capability can kill your creativity faster than a cop knocking on the door to tell you your too loud, knock it off!!
You can attend to microscopic details later. You have to get the whole picture in there first! Trust me, the more you work, the more at ease with the process you will become.

And if you want to double the stage fright factor.. do like I do and record all your live performances!! 

I get nervous because I know that the take will suck. And it usually does! That's because I'm not much of a singer and I really dislike the sound of my own voice. And I mean I dislike it a lot. Still, recording a take gets much easier with the umpty-bazillionth take. I find that I've gone through the entire four stages of grieving the fact that I don't have Jon Mayer's voice after a couple of hundred tries, and I relax into it. I even start to find ways to do things I didn't think I could do, and after a while I even start to overlook the hideous nasal screeching that is my vocal gift to humanity.
 
Oh, and it helps me a great deal if I know the material front-to-back after rehearsing it a thousand times. Good luck, OP, your post has struck a nerve, methinks.

just chock it up to experience, the more you record, the easier it gets.
im not going to lie though, there are still days where tough passages frustrate me after 10 takes.
Noel is correct though, use take lanes. I don't use them that much but in your situation. learn about them. I only use them on the tough stuff.
 
I feel once you start popping out take lanes on every track, you take a way the fundamentals of inspirational recording which in my opinion is more important then the material you are recording.
once its polished to much, its ruined. you can only polish a turd so much before you look at it and say "its still a turd".
inspiration is captured through flaws and imperfections. something take lanes were never designed for