Work until your future has evidence you were serious about reaching it.

Wanting something leaves no record. Effort does. When you look back over a stretch of months, the question that matters is not how badly you wanted the outcome but whether anything in the record suggests you meant it. That evidence is also for you, because on the days you doubt yourself the file of what you actually did is more convincing than any pep talk.

Start keeping the simplest possible log of what you do toward the thing that matters. A line a day is enough. In three months it becomes either a case for your seriousness or a useful confrontation.