Hi,
I read your statement:
"It's like I bounce back-and-forth between feeling proud of myself and feeling like a failure. Ugh."
If this is an issue for you, then I would also consider Paul Scheele's book "Natural Brilliance". This talks about the problem you mentioned. Basically Paul say that we try and achieve two things simultaneously, we try and move forward to our goal state but we also have stuck states which are like stop signs that prevent us from moving forward.
An example of my interpretation of this: I want to develop my computer programming skills to a professional level and be an good programming problem solver. However when I try to push forward and learn the skills, or reach a point when I can't move forward or encounter a problem, I enter a stuck state. My stuck state is that I want to avoid being in a job and being given a programming task and worried that I will show myself up as being incapable or stupid. Another one of my stuck states is when I went to university to study a post-gradute diploma in computer programming, a lot of the class had previously came from science degrees such as physics, maths, chemistry, and I believed the were better than me because they were able to grasp the skills and thinking processes required to programme quickly. This experience was holding me back because I believed that I was not as good as them and 'was not the right type of person to be a programmer'. I was really wanting to move forward and pick up the books to learn but I had this nagging belief and I would not even try.
If you look at this book you will see the steps Paul talks about in how to break free from your stuck states to reclaim your natural genius to learn. I am still takling my stuck states and I am trying to break free from them, and I know that to achieve my goal, it will take time. I am determined however and regardless of who I am or what I have in terms of intelligence, I am still able to learn and improve.
Dmlocke
