I have known people that have just come out of very struggling situations with very low self-confidence and self-esteem. I have myself lived very disappointing experiences that required the application of what you have just explained.  My self-confidence has been so low that the only way I found to recover from that has been exactly to establish relatively low goals to my self.  After all, in those situations, one of the most important things is to recover the self-confidence above anything else.  That is undoubtedly the first step to achieve anything else afterwards. So personally I know that what you say works in a very effective way. Thank for sharing it with us.