Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.
When your results are good, you are obviously going to have a lot of press. And when you start to falter a little bit, you are going to have some criticism, and there is nothing abnormal in that.
Efforts to develop critical thinking falter in practice because too many professors still lecture to passive audiences instead of challenging students to apply what they have learned to new questions.
I think it is important to maintain a sense of self and confidence, not letting either falter for the sake of a particular part or project, no matter how great it might be.
In the past, my success has come with sticking to one plan. That usually works. Obviously it's going to falter, and I'm going to go into slumps here and there, but stick with the plan, and hopefully it will come out successful more times than not.
Children who open their lunchboxes and find mothers' handwritten notes telling them how amazingly bright they are tend to falter when they encounter academic difficulties.