In my first year of college, I sat next to a woman in her mid-50s in my math class who didn't understand the course very well - and was very vocal about it. It seemed every day she had a dozen questions about something everyone else saw as really simple, and after a couple days, I got the feeling I should have picked a different seat. By the second week, the teacher and the woman approached me and offered me a proposition: if I spent my mornings tutoring the woman and helping her with her quizzes and homework (hybrid course so everything was online), neither of us would need to attend class. No boring math class and a free ride to campus every day, not to mention she paid for my expensive coffee habit most days? Win-win for sure. As I got to know the woman, I learned more about her history: she'd battled with drug addiction for most of her life, been in and out of prison, dealt with divorce from an abusive ex-husband who had beaten her and knocked her teeth out with a baseball bat, and her felon record made it almost impossible to get a job. She told me she wanted to be a social worker and was just starting to go to college in her 50s. Not only did we both get an A in that class, she graduated the next semester with her Associate's summa cum laude, went on to get her Bachelor's and Master's within the next 3 years, and just started her dream job making around $70,000/year - and she's still trying to move up.
This story makes it easy to see that all the screw-ups in the world don't matter when you've got a concrete goal and an ironclad will. It was hard work for sure; after she got her Bachelor's, she went to a counselor and was told she had a mathematical learning disability (her response was "no shit, where were you 2 years ago?"). Plenty of times she felt her course load was too much and she had to reach out to other people to get help. But she found a way and made it happen. Some of the things she always talked about and insisted upon were:
- Set a strict standard for grades. She was never satisfied with anything less than an A. If she got a B, she was pissed. She did whatever it took to get that A, even arguing with the teacher when she knew she worked her ass off on something. There were times when the teacher didn't like her and wouldn't let her make anything up or graded her more harshly than she was okay with, but she was a pretty likable person and the teachers were willing to work with her 95% of the time. Never ever hurts to send the teacher an email, or preferably talk to them in person.
- Never missed a class unless it was for a very good reason. If she had a doctor appointment or had to spend more time working on something for another class, she would make an exception; it would always be followed up with an email to the teacher or a classmate asking what notes she would need from that day's lecture or if she needed to make something up. She always knew important dates for exams and labs, and pretty much organized her schedule around school.
- Joined an honors society/program. Not only did it make her CV/resume and her academic career look better, it surrounded her with people who were equally motivated for good grades. Plus, if your grades start slipping they kick you out, and she couldn't stand the thought of that. Not all campuses have a free honors society (the one at the university I'm going to go to costs like an extra $700/semester and has separate housing and everything, probably not gonna do that), but if they do it's definitely worth it.
- Paid attention to ways she could decrease her costs. I'm pretty sure she was unemployed for the first semester I knew her and got a part-time job on campus in the second semester before she graduated. She pretty much lived off of credit cards until she got the job she has now, so she was always looking for scholarships and grants that she could apply for and wrote essays for them whenever she had time. She avoided student loans like the plague, which is an example I wish I had followed. A couple hours writing an essay is worth it if you can knock a few thousand dollars off of tuition (for those of you in the EU, be thankful your governments actually care about public education - that few thousand dollars barely puts a dent in the total here). Another note: maybe avoid on-campus housing. It's good for logistics if you're gaming on college girls, but it's less quality for more money and an apartment near campus might be more bang for your buck (pun intended).
- Asked for help. I wasn't the only person helping her with her classes. Sometimes it's pride, sometimes it's genuinely thinking you don't need it, but a lot of people just don't ask for help when this is one of the easiest ways to get something done. Maybe you don't have time to get an assignment done or you just don't get it. Ask the smart guy in class if he'd be willing to share his notes or show you how to do something, or even do it for you. Offer them a good or service in exchange if you want. If someone gave me a ride and a coffee every day for the rest of the semester, I'd happily do their homework assignments if it's only gonna take me 10-15 minutes.
I'm using her example over one of my own because I'm hardly an example of success in this field. I'm kind of in the same boat as you now: told myself I was going to turn things around, but I've lost count of how many classes I've skipped (for dumb reasons too) and I miss deadlines like crazy. So hopefully we can figure this out together
I don't know if negative beliefs are all of it, but it sounds like you've avoided at least part of the victim mentality by accepting responsibility for what's happened. That being said, there seems to be a lack of effort to fix the behaviors that got you into that mess to begin with. Maybe you feel there's no point in changing now since you're so far gone, or maybe your defeatism is comfortable and you don't want to risk being successful because it would mean a major change to your routine. I could tell you that your academic success isn't a direct reflection on your abilities as a person, and plenty of individuals are successful without degrees... but I don't want to say that because you've already come so far and you deserve to graduate. Make school your #1 priority (besides keeping your belly full and a roof over your head), plan everything else around that, find a good environment to study in (home isn't always the best place if you're prone to distractions), if you have extra time try to get some future assignments done so you don't have to do them later.
It could also be maybe you were smarter than most other people in your primary and secondary school, and it took you less time to do the work so you got in the habit of putting it off to the last minute and still skating by. If you can make that work in college, by all means, keep doing it; just get good at gauging how much time you'll need to study and do homework.
And if you feel like a fuck-up, remember the story above. You're not too far gone, it's never too late, and (maybe most importantly) that feeling is just reinforcing a lack of action on your part. Think like a scholar, and you'll be a scholar. Think like a drop-out, and, well...
Best of luck.