It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes. - Sally Field, actressI grew up an "A" Nazi. I was crushed if I did not receive an "A" for every class, a little less so if I did not receive an "A" on every assignment. My grades represented whether I had attained success.

But there are no "test scores" in the real world, so we end up relinquishing the measure of our abilities and success to those around us: our peers, our supervisors, our family.
Re-evaluating the litmus test for determining my success is a lesson and skill I learned when I went to law school.
It's never too late to be what you might have been. - George Eliot, novelist
It was a "late-in-life" career change. Being a lawyer was a dream I had since childhood but I never saw it as a possibility. It was out of my socio-economic view point. No one in my family, or extended family, had ever attained a degree so advanced. No one in my family's social circle had a similar profession. I thought only rich people could afford to go to law school because one of the requirements, at the time, was no employment during the first year at least. I assumed only the well-off could afford to go to graduate school without working to pay their livings expenses.
At this later point in my life, I could afford to not work for the first year - though not all law schools require non-employment any more.
Still, I was worried about whether I was up to the task since I had been out of school so long. I worried about whether I could compete with the much younger students who were fresh out of undergrad. I worried that I would not even take the bar exam until I was 40 years old.
Despite my worries, and with my husband's encouragement, I decided I would do it anyway.