You have already been admitted to the club of “good enough.”
“Everybody has to have a thing.”
This was something that had been explained to me over and over again but now I was living it in real life. It was my freshman year at Yale University. We were all living in buildings that looked like castles, navigating living away from home for the first time, looking around eagerly at the people who people had said may be “friends you'll have for the rest of your lives.” And all around us hung a question: What made each of us good enough to be accepted here?
The acceptance rate at Yale the year I was accepted was in single digits. We all knew during the arduous previous year of applications, interviews and waiting anxiously for that email to arrive that test scores were not enough. Good grades were not enough. Family history with the school was not enough.
Everybody had to have a thing.
Once I was there, it almost became a fun exploration to discover the unique storyline for each person. One of the men who lived in my same dorm had dozens of crosswords published in the New York Times ("even a handful of Sundays," he proudly described, which explained to me that having a puzzle you designed for the hardest day of the week was a special accomplishment). Another, a varsity athlete with a passion for Greek history. Some were more personal, a bubbly first generation college student who dreamed of being a doctor and helping people in the countries where her family came from.
But over the weeks, months and years that I was lucky to get to know many of these people (not to mention lucky enough to experience the college experience at a school that had been around longer than our country), the more this concept sunk in. (Not to mention that the curtain was further pulled back and this principle verified when some of my peers worked in the Admissions office and saw it for themeselves.)
We all had a story that brought us there - that was more than check boxes and stats on the page. And once you got in the door, we all had the next journey - did you believe that your story was good enough? These students tended to immerse themselves in the school but also allow for lazy days, a mediocre grade or an easier semester where social life took more of the front seat. Or were you still in some ways acting out the application experience trying to prove to yourself and those around you that you deserved to be here? These students tend to be spotted in dining halls pouring a third cup of coffee, haggard eyes on a Saturday morning, not from the night with their friends but because of more hours spent in a library, lab or studio.
We continue to live this long after we walk across that stage. Do you embrace your story? Or do you find the faults in it, the reasons why it's holding you back or why you need to work harder to make up for it?
This shows up in:
Not being able to accept compliments
Hitting accomplishments like salary thresholds, titles or completed projects and not feeling the way you thought it would
A subtle skepticism when getting romantic interest from a new person
Waiting to share certain interests or personality quirks until people have “gotten to know you better”
Inability to rest or feeling like you need to always “be productive”
When we are not fully embracing our story, no amount of approval from others will make us feel safe because we'll always find a reason not to trust their perspective, to point out the piece they haven't learned yet or the reason why their opinion isn't sufficient and we also need some other person's approval. We will literally not let somebody choose us because of the cognitive dissonance that it creates with our own story (I touch on this in one of the days of my program, Exclusive)
Heartbreakingly, this leads us to a never-ending cycle, much like the exhausted, coffee-laced student. “I need to keep going.” “If I stop, it'll all fall apart.” “I have to prove that I'm worth it.”
This constant search for external validation can never be satisfied by the external. Just like for admitted students, it was impossible to get definitive proof that they were worth being admitted because the only proof they'd ever get, they'd already gotten. They got in to Yale. They just had to accept it.
If you struggle with not feeling good enough, with having to prove yourself to be worthy, with showing the guy why he should want to be in a committed relationship with you, with proving to your boss that you aren't a massive imposter… the secret is the same: accept that you are.
You are good enough. You do deserve a committed relationship. You did earn the promotion. You are lovable. Your story is good enough.
You do not have to change something about yourself to make the above statements true. Instead, you have to unlearn, unwind the things you learned when you were younger that made you believe you weren't already good enough.
You have already been admitted to the club of “good enough.” Can you learn to enjoy it?
