Vague & Ambiguous

Please excuse the vagueness of the following post.

Nothing is more frustrating than assuming you're doing well at something, and then you find out that's not the case. The worst thing you can do as a person, trying to advance yourself in some way, is to assume that you're doing great. When you make these assumptions, you're essentially climbing up this ambiguous staircase to your own "success". When these assumptions aren't reinforced, and something happens that reinforces the opposite, it's like somebody at the top of this staircase says "Hey, you don't belong here" and they kick you off. It doesn't feel like they're kicking you down the stairs, it feels like you're free falling off the balcony of this so-called destination: your idea of success that you assumed you had reached. What is brutal about this is I was being told I was great. I was being told I was good. But apparently I have taken these words and I've ran too far with them. Not only is this feeling frustrating, but it hurts both mentally and emotionally. I'm forced to look back and think what I could have done differently, what other efforts I could have put in to realize this dream, what am I doing that others are not, or vice versa. Now I feel like I have to start from the beginning, and climb these stairs, yet again. Hopefully it will be good for my character. But right now I just want to flip a table over and leave the building.