Number two, which helps you start, and also keeps you going, is self esteem. Self esteem is the emotional sum of all your past achievements. The good thing about esteeming yourself is that you're allowed to casually ignore your many fuck-ups. I don't care how far back you have to go to find something to esteem, just find it for Christ's sake. The fact that you've fucked up 10,000 times in the past doesn't mean that you can't succeed in the future. The fact that you've succeeded once means you can. You did. Case closed.
Number three: you need to take the time to appreciate the process of achieving. Presumably, you chose something to achieve that you have some sort of interest in. If not, get back to the drawing board. (Or if you're not sure whether you're really interested in it, enjoy the fact that you're on the verge of discovering something you might enjoy.) Since life is more than a few moments of having achieved stuff, it's probably worth it to amuse yourself between those moments.
While you're in the process of achieving, emotional reward comes in taking the individual steps toward the achievement. Really, there are two types of emotions you experience along the way towards an achievement. The first is the emotion of having made a single step. This emotion is analogous to the emotion you experience after a complete goal is attained, just smaller. A few of these emotions make you feel good at the end of the day, or at the end of the week when you open up the beer or wine bottle or demand your martini to be stirred, not shaken. (Because you don't want the bartender to dilute your martini in the name of James Bond.)
The second emotion in the process of achieving is unique. In fact, it's an emotion you can only feel before, not after, an achievement has been completed. It's the emotion of taking a step, as opposed to having taken it. Visualize this by thinking of any professional athlete. Any athlete worth his weight in entertainment value plays the game because he likes playing it. Getting his hands on the trophy is great, but to him, nothing beats catching the ball. Unless of course he's a tennis player, in which case he's a fucking idiot.
