nvictor,
Thanks for your post. Here's a few thoughts I have.
For a start you're not taking pride/confidence/any emotional payoff from the external victories you have on a day to day basis. You suffer the emotional trauma of worrying and fretting before the exams, but you don't give yourself the same level, intensity, or duration of praise when you do succeed.
This essentially puts you in a state of perpetual catch up, where the best you can hope to do is reach neutral, break even.
So my first recommendation is to take pride in your achievements.
You say you should feel confident. Why should you?
I'm not asking that to attack you but when I hear people use the word should they're usually berating themselves. My thoughts on that destructive word are
here.
Simply put, does saying to yourself "I shall be confident, but I'm not" help you develop your confidence? You're beating yourself up with this type of language.
Remember, you are doing your best with whatever you know at the time, and that includes how you speak to yourself, how you treat yourself and how you feel.
norbert,
Thanks for the link, I'll read it a few times over the next few days.
Lots of love,
Colm