Worried you’re not “good enough”? Here’s what you need to understand
When something goes wrong in your life do you worry that it's may be because you aren't good enough? Do you often evaluate yourself against other people in your life and feel like you don’t measure up?
This worry about not being “good enough” is one of the most common complaints I hear from overacheivers, people pleasers and perfectionists and it makes sense because those behaviors are related to this fear.
So in today’s post, I wanted to talk more about what’s really going on when we’re worried that we’re not “enough.” Let’s dive in.
When you don’t feel“enough” (and what to do about it)
When we’re worried about being “enough,” whether or not we realize it there’s a subtle amount of comparison going on. Are we good enough for what? For whom?
The problem in this type of questioning is that it implies that there's a world in which you might not be.
Confused? Here's another way to think about it...
It's the difference between worth and value. A water bottle costs $1 at Costco, $3 at 7-11, $5 in a movie theater and $7 on a plane. That's about it's value. In different situations, we evaluate it as more or less valuable. Translate this to your life and this is why one guy isn't interested in you and another guy thinks your the bees knees. A difference in value (because value is subjective).
But that water bottle is always water. It is always worthy of being water. It's always wet. It's always hydrating. These are intrinsic qualities of what it is and the degree to which other people value it don’t change that fact.
One guy may value you more than another but when we start asking ourselves is we're "good enough" (with the implication of good enough for something or someone), we've stopped asking ourselves the value question and started asking the worthiness question. And that is a recipe for low confidence and self-doubt.
What does it look like if you’re worried about being “enough”?
If you are really tuned into what it means to be “enough,” you might be doing things like:
Significantly tailoring how you show up based on the situation you’re entering (a little bit is good social skills, a lot is people pleasing)
Feeling deeply attached to other people’s opinions of you
Avoiding rejection or negative feedback at all costs
Overgiving in your friendships or relationships
Struggling to really relax because you always feel like there’s something else you should be doing
Struggling with body image critiques
Analyzing what to text or say in trying to ensure the other person reacts the way you hope
Staying in situations you know aren’t a good fit (like a bad job or a situationship)
Constantly battling negative self talk
How familiar are these things sounding, my friend?
What does it really mean to be "good enough"?
When you’re striving "good enough," you’re probably grappling with a constant awareness of other people’s expectations. Picture this: a woman striving to balance her professional ambitions with societal standards of beauty and what she thinks she needs to be in order to attract a man. Sounding familiar?
She may feel the need to portray an image of perfection, even if it comes at the cost of expressing her authentic self. And as a result, when she gets approval for this manufactured version of herself she doesn’t feel “good enough” because she deep down knows that these people aren’t seeing the real her.
But when she tries to show up and express herself authentically, she’s often met with pushback or criticism from those around here which makes her feel like she made a mistake showing up in the first place, reinforcing the “not good enough” belief.
It feels like a Catch-22. So how do you get out of it?
It start with understanding that your “enoughness” a.k.a. your worthiness for the things you want in life - rest, money, attention, appreciation, love - are not tied to other people’s opinion.
If they were, then we’d be saying that if you have ever been broken up with, you’re not worthy of love.You see how crazy that sounds? You are worthy of love, rest, and abundance regardless of whether it’s happening for you right now.
The key here is that ability to separate what we are seeing in the world around us from how we feel about ourselves. Which I know might sound completely foreign to you overachievers and people pleasers.
Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Why do people pleasers and perfectionists get stuck in this pattern?
The desire for external validation is deeply ingrained, and fueled by societal norms and this is especially acute for people pleasers, who generally have put their self-worth in the hands of others and perfectionists, who are extremely attuned to negative stimuli like criticism and rejection.
Think about the kid who gets attention from her parents when she comes back with good grades and is always rewarded for being the “responsible one.” It’s not hard to see how this kid would grow up feeling rather uncomfortable getting constructive criticism at work because in her brain, achieving means love and safety so when she’s getting the opposite (even though we rationally understand that the constructive criticism is actually trying to help her), she’s feel deeply unsafe.
Because both of these types care so much about the external validation and others opinions, they end up on an endless treadmill searching for the next hit of somebody’s validation.
When we zoom out to the macro, these behaviors make it so that it’s extremely difficult to FEEL good enough. Becuase even if you get the external signs of being “enough,” you’re not going to feel it because that you’ve learned that you don’t decide what is “enough,” rather it’s decided by those around you.
You literally don’t experience “enough” in your body, so you’re always chasing it.
And society often celebrates those who tirelessly strive for external validation, portraying them as top performers and valuable. They also make for great consumers because they’ll spend tons of money searching for something that will make them feel “enough” (still making that mistake of thinking it’s outside of them).
So then the question becomes, how do we stop?
How to stop chasing the myth of "good enough"
The most fundamental thing to remind yourself if you’d like to really believe in your own worthiness is that it is all about what you feel inside, not what’s happening outside.
This will probably feel hugely counterintuitive - you want more money, more friends, a boyfriend etc.! But the more you let having or not having those things dictate whether you feel worthy, the longer you stay on the treadmill.
When you’re able to feel “enough” even when something’s gone wrong, when you made a mistake or you feel like a mess, that’s when you’ve reached the place of disconnecting from external validation.
But let’s make this more practical in terms of how to get started
Pay attention to your desire for external approval -
Who’s approval do you care about? You can practically list out these people and check in with yourself on whether you actually want their opinion to matter.
Separately, consider whether if you actually asked the person: “Hey, I have to make a choice - doing what would make you happy but might make things harder for me or prioritizing what will make me happy. What do you want me to do?” As hard as it can be for a people pleaser to come to this intuitively, most people that care about you would actually want you to prioritize yourself.
Address your people pleasing patterns -
The deeper patterns of people pleasing are probably playing out in lots of areas of your life. In fact, I know they are, which is why people pleasing is one of the key topics I talk about inside of Confidence Club. (If you want some more practical exercises on how to address people pleasing, head here to check out more about the program).
When you are able to prioritize your desires and wants first, you can still care about other people and think about their wants and needs but you won’t spend all your time and energy trying to win the unwinnable game of satisfying everybody (it’s just a law of numbers - there’s no way that you’ll find one answer of who you can be that will satisfy everybody in your life!)
Start celebrating imperfection -
When “enough” is often a loosely veiled goal of perfectionism, the way to stop chasing it is to stop framing an imperfection or a failure as a problem!
This might look like taking time to give yourself a compliment on a day where you’re feeling gross and sick. It could be celebrating your accomplishments even in the middle of a project before you hit the landmark that will say you’re doing a good job. This can look like self-soothing when you face a moment of rejection or failure with reassurance that you are still perfectly worthy of everything you want.
Remember, when you can feel good about yourself even in the face of “negative” external feedback. That’s when you’ll feel “enough” because it’s coming from inside you!
Remember, transitions like these take time. If you know that sometimes you struggle to stick with this type of work (and often will backslide into old patterns once the early conviction slides off), definitely check out Confidence Club. You’re worth it!