Keep receipts of what you’ve survived. On doubtful days, read them back.

Memory is unreliable in exactly the wrong direction. When you feel weak, your mind serves up every time you struggled and quietly hides the harder things you already got through. Written evidence beats that, because it was recorded by a version of you who had just done the thing and knew it was true.

Start a note on your phone and add a line whenever you get through something you thought you could not. The night you finished the project. The conversation you were dreading. Read it back the next time doubt claims this is the first hard thing you have faced.