Meaning and Purpose and Self Confidence

"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose." - Viktor Frankl

"The secret of success is focus of purpose." - Thomas A. Edison

Back to meaning and purpose again. I didn't mean to get here. I truly didn't. However, these two quotes jumped out at me last night and again this morning.

I say jumped out, but really they were there in plain sight. The thing that got me thinking about them was the realization yesterday that I have precisely zero self confidence in my ability to accomplish anything.

Zero, you say? That's pretty extreme.

Yup, it sure is. But as we sit through the Financial Peace seminar, ticking off things we shouldn't do and things we should have done and realizing how badly I got off track trying to find something which substituted for meaning and purpose (and just got me failure and debt instead), I am suddenly overwhelmed (there is no other word) by the sense that I simply cannot bring anything to completion.

There is a sense within myself that I can't. Just can't. Doesn't matter what, just can't. I can list project after project that I started strong in, showed high levels of interest in, then just tapered off.

I lack staying power. I would guess this probably comes from lacking goals and purpose, but goals are often based on some kind of purposed or meaning to them. Mine too often seem to be the thing that has most recently caught my eye or someone else's goals that I think are pretty cool and want to do because it sounds like a good idea.

You've no idea - unless you've lived it - what a weight is on your shoulders when you are overcome by the sense that nothing makes a difference, that you can't accomplish what you set out to do, that all that you are doing is simply filling a wide void that will never be filled.

How do you gain gain self confidence from a position that you can't see anything to the end?