When things have to be difficult for a long time, how do you minimize bouts of self-pity and despair and get back on course?

Sometimes endurance is needed to get from one place in life to another. Eventually, you will get to the other side of the course but along the way sometimes the task feels hopeless, slow, too difficult, meaningless, or impossible. Sometimes it feels like you don’t deserve the end goal. Sometimes you feel bad for not being further along by now. Sometimes your mistakes come back to haunt you, even if only in your mind.

In every sober moment, however, you realize that you will eventually get to your goal, that you will make it to the end just as you have so many times before. When you consult with your peers, even they believe in your imminent success.

Still, some time passes and you find the bouts of despair return again and again. While immaterial perhaps in retrospect, in any present moment these feelings quite materially suck away precious minutes or hours or days from your attention and focus on the prerequisites of your goal; They extend the already difficult course.

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When a bout of anxiety, self-pity, doubt, despair, or self-deprecation is slowing your progress how do you navigate it to minimize the inhibiting effects? How do you overcome it and regain perspective and focus quickly? How do you turn it around effectively?