A Lack of Belief in Long Term Success

I face two great problems in realizing success in any area of my life.  It has occurred to me that this problems are not any different than those who are successful face; it is just that they have resolved them.

1)  I have the inability to focus on a particular goal.  I have enough problems deciding on one, but once I have, I have greater problems bringing focus and intensity to the problem at hand.

2)  I lack the belief that I will be able actually achieve anything leading to long term success.

The second one is the one that qualifies as the epiphany, and perhaps the one that is more relevant - without believe that you will be able to succeed, the execution of any goal in pursuit of that success seems a waste of effort.

Where do this lack of confidence originate from?  Certainly I have demonstrated that I can accomplish any number of things, and I am sure that if I polled my friends they would not see this as something that was an issue.

Perhaps the issue is not so much that I can or cannot accomplish things, but that I cannot accomplish things that make a serious impact on my life and my future.

Example:  I (through the electronic grapevine) was made aware yesterday of a former coworker with whom I shared a similar title getting promoted.  In the same period of time (approximately 10 years) they have gone from manager to VP.  I have remained a manager.

Or the simple example of my current position where I have maintained the same title for 5 years while others have been promoted in far shorter periods of time.

Promotions come by many means of course, including effort.  My point is that if I look over my career life of the last 10 years and point to my advancement in the field, I find that it is none at all.  All the various efforts and initiatives went precisely no-where.  At some point one begins to despair of ever moving forward no matter what one does.

Now imagine this seemed true in every aspect of one's life.

What is the solution?  I can see it easily enough - believe that your efforts will pay off- but it is a very hard thing to believe at the moment.  I can point to that string of individual and isolated success; unfortunately they seem more like individual rocks standing on the edge of the sea shore rather than a peninsula over which I can cross over.

It brings up a fundamental question to which I find myself seeking the answer:  how does one change the very bedrock of one's belief from the concept that one cannot succeed to the belief that one can succeed?