In my work as a Hypnotherapist, I often encounter clients who have had their confidence in themselves shattered by failure. A string of defeats or a single particularly bad one can drain you of that most critical and essential quality for success - belief in yourself.
It's all too easy to believe that circumstances have proven that you will never "make it". Of course this is completely untrue. In the first place, failure almost always involves events that could not have been foreseen, or an environment can turn hostile or unfavourable completely beyond your control. I have personally witnessed myself the needless destruction of the health of perfectly able, competent and talented individuals by unreasonable and unsupportive environments and workplaces.
Uncontrollable circumstances alone account for the majority of cases I deal with. The people I help would thrive in a different more supportive environment, and it's my priviledge to open their eyes to this reality and give them new confidence to start afresh.
But there is another reason why there is no such person as a failure. Developments in neuroscience have led to a startling implication about the nature of the self - a new "you" is born every moment.
The classical belief is that there is a true perpetual "you" which if it can only get all parts of mind and body in tune will be a success. Your past is thus your record of success at doing that. It's no wonder then that people write themselves off as failures if their track record is not particularly good reading.
There is now compelling neuroscientific evidence that there is no perpetual "you" at all. People who say "I'm not the person I used to be" are more correct than they realise! The particularly vivid nature of the human memory, which enables you to relive the "you" of the past, leads you to conclude that you are that person whose memory you so vividly recall. This memory is useful in drawing upon as a library of experiences, but it is NOT who you are now.
The elusive "seat of consciousnes" has not been found because it ISN'T THERE! You are purely what you are deciding you are from moment to moment. If you decide that you are the person you recall from memory, then that's what you become! And so the illusion of a constant self can be perpetuated.
This means that in any given moment, you are exactly what you believe yourself to be at that moment. Every time your attention shifts to something different, you are quite literally a different person, mentally and physically, with a different body chemistry.
And so with a new "you" born every moment, you can decide what to keep hold of from all the past "yous" and which to discard, and do wonderful new things with the circumstances available to you.
