Even before birth, you are being shaped and formed into the person you will become. As an infant you will receive the love, nurturing, and care your parents provide, or you won't. You will grow up believing you have abilities, or you won't. You will feel strong, independent, and courageous, or you won't. You will be encouraged to live a life of your choosing, or you won't. This is where the measure for success comes down do: "Some will, Some Won't. Next."
How you define yourself is more important than how others define you. This challenge is often the main focus of therapy. Every time we are deceived, wounded, harmed, and recover there is a tendency to minimize the effects of the pain. This minimizing happens in cases of child abuse, domestic violence, battery, deception, and rape. It also happens in cases of racism, sexism, and discrimination. It hurts when we are wounded, and it hurts even more when the abuser is someone we love.
It is part of our humanity to intuitively desire for change. Some people "bounce back" while others slowly regain footing. Others never will recover completely and will suffer silently, not wanting to be a burden to others who have moved on. Sometimes we seek help to learn the root causes for our problems, and sometimes we would rather blame others for our situation.
One college age woman came to therapy to learn life skills she did not learn in her home. Our focus of therapy was to minimize her anxiety and depression that was fueled by addiction and abuse in the home and maximize her ability to see herself with clarity and truth. After several months of therapy, this young lady had a revelation that changed the trajectory of her life, "I realize now that I learned I had to dim myself in order to let other people shine." The truth that set her free was her ability to understand that her "shine" had nothing to do with the dimness of others. She was free to live her life with intention, and not feel guilty for not living the life others wanted to limit her to.
Plan for tomorrow but live for today. Live intentionally, with a reason to get out of bed every day. Make yourself a priority, give yourself as much attention as you give to others, spend time with yourself, like you would with your best friend. Be true to yourself and refuse to live the lies others want you to believe. You are strong if you believe it. You are able if you do it. You are not alone. Seek the wisdom of those who will take your hand and show you the way. Don't believe it, until you see it for yourself. Courage happens after you go through the thing that scares you. Start acting like the person you want to become, and soon you'll realize you are.
Every opportunity to fail is an opportunity for growth.