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Is it perfectionism, feeling not good enough?
«They’re standards that most of us can’t live up to 24/7, and we ultimately end up feeling not good enough because we don’t look like the fitness Instagrammer who took the photo first thing in the morning before eating or drinking.»
«Это стандарты, которым большинство из нас не могут следовать 24/7, и в конечном итоге мы начинаем чувствовать себя недостаточно хорошо, потому что мы не похожи на ту часть фитнес-инстаграма, в которой люди в первую очередь фотографируются перед едой и питьём воды.»
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by Andrea M. Darcy
Tried positive thinking and affirmations? Read all the advice about self-confidence?
But deep down still are left feeling not good enough?
I feel like a failure
Low self-worth often stems from very deep-rooted issues. This becomes clear looking at the common reasons for not feeling good enough.
[Want to talk to someone about your secret beliefs you are not good enough? Book an online therapy session with a therapist you like, be talking as soon as tomorrow.]
7 Reasons For Feeling Not Good Enough
1.You have hidden core beliefs that are running the show.
The thoughts we actually hear in our heads are far less powerful than those that lurk in our unconscious. Low self worth is inevitably connected to the buried and hidden assumptions about the world, others, and ourselves that we mistake as fact.
These ‘core beliefs‘ are often formed when we were children, with a child’s simple perspective. So they can be surprisingly dramatic and untrue. And yet we unwittingly base all our life decisions around them.
For example, a child with a parent who suddenly leaves one day without offering a reason is not evolved to understand an adult having a mental breakdown, or running off for space after a fight. In the child’s mind, the core belief ‘if you love someone they leave you’ takes hold. Even if the parent comes back a few days later the belief sticks, and the child grows into an adult who never lets anyone close.
2. If you listen deeply, your inner voice is actually critical and judgemental.
It is easy is to convince ourselves we are ‘positive thinkers’.
And yet many of us don’t actually take the time to properly listen to our thoughts. If we do, we might discover it’s a radio show of negativity.
Mindfulness is a wonderful technique for slowing down enough to hear your thoughts clearly. It is about listening and letting go to thoughts without judgement. Learn more in our free ‘Guide to Mindfulness’.
3. You surround yourself with critical people.
Of course some of us don’t even need negative thoughts to ensure we always feel not good enough. We let other people do the job for us by consciously choosing toxic friendships and unhealthy relationships.Then others put us down no matter how hard we try.
4. You had critical, demanding, or aloof parent(s) that left you feeling not good enough.
Yes, perhaps you had a ‘good childhood’. You lived in a nice house, your parents never divorced. You never wanted for anything.
But then again, perhaps you did. Perhaps you wanted for the approval and love that every child needs.
If your parent(s) always wanted you to smarter, or quieter, or sportier, or if they favoured your sibling….? Whatever it was, the message was that you were not enough as is. It might have just been that your parent was not good at loving due to their own unresolved issues.
As children we naturally seek approval and love. So we learn to suffocate our real personality and become the ‘good’ child, at the price of turning into an adult who never feels a sense of worth.
5. You main caregiver couldn’t offer you stability or safety.
Some children have a parent who is simply unable to offer them an environment of safety where they can trust their parent to be there for them. Perhaps you parent was an alcoholic, suffered depression, or was in a toxic relationship that demanded all their attention.
If a parent is unwell the child can feel responsible for the parent’s happiness. If only you acted a certain way, did certain things, were somehow a better/smarter child your parent would be ok. But of course a child can’t fix such a parent or situation. So their endless codependency evolves into a belief they are not good enough somehow.
6. You didn’t get enough ‘attachment’ as a kid.
What both these points about parenting involve is not having a caregiver who was able to offer unconditional love and trust, or what is called ‘attachment’ in psychology.
Attachment theory believes that for the first seven years of life a child absolutely needs unconditional love and to be able to trust his or her primary caregiver. If this doesn’t happen, we can end up with ‘anxious attachment’, which involves never trusting yourself or others and lacking confidence.
7. You experienced strong trauma(s) in the past.
Of course one way to develop negative core beliefs quickly as a child does not necessarily involve poor parenting.
Childhood trauma decimates a child’s sense of worth.
Most children feel responsible for the trauma, particularly if it is physical abuse or sexual abuse. They internalise the idea they are bad and worthless, so deserved it.
So is feeling not good enough always all about the past?
It is inevitable that the environments and experiences of our childhood affected us. Of course there are other factors. Some of us born with a naturally more sensitive personality, for example, so suffer more.
And sometimes it is a marked trauma as an adult that leaves us not feeling good enough, such as a betrayal. Even then, though, we will find our confidence an self-worth suffers more, and we take longer to recuperate, if we had previous trauma in our early life or poor parenting.
What sorts of therapy help?
If trawling through your past just isn’t your thing, take heart. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is shown to raise self-esteem, and it does so by focusing on your present day issues and changing the way you respond to thoughts.
And humanistic therapies like person-centred therapy can help your confidence by showing you the personal resources you already have, and helping you grow these inner resources and use them to make better choices. Or try compassion-focused therapy (CFT), which teaches you how to be more gentle with yourself and others.
Want help to overcome not feeling enough in life? We put you in touch with top talk therapists in central London locations. Not in London or even the UK? Find a quality online therapists on our sister site.
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Andrea M. Darcy is a mental health and wellbeing expert and personal development teacher with training in person-centred counselling and coaching, as well as a popular psychology writer. Follow her on Instagram for useful life tips @am_darcy
Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is simply believing you’re worthy of the trip.
Truth be told, you can’t berate yourself into a better version of yourself. And even though I know this, I sometimes still fall victim to my own negative thinking. Sometimes I’m downright rude to myself. I make a mistake, or fall short of my own expectations, and instead of treating it as a learning opportunity, I beat myself up about it.
I’m sure you can relate. We’ve all been there. We all have bad days and moments of self-doubt.
Sometimes the pressure coming from peers, family, work, and society in general is enough to make us feel completely broken inside. If we don’t have the “right” job, relationship, lifestyle, and so forth, by a certain age or timeframe, we assume we’re just “not good enough.” Angel and I hear about this kind of self-defeating mindset from our coaching clients and blog subscribers (subscribe here) on a daily basis, and like I said, we aren’t immune either.
So what can we do about it?
Here’s how I handle it: Every time I catch myself thinking I’m not good enough, I immediately write down an opposing thought that debunks my negativity. I’ve been doing this for the past several years and it’s made a tremendous difference in my life. I challenge you to do the same.
If you need a little extra inspiration, here are some things I’ve come up with – 20 good reminders when you’re feeling “not good enough”:
- Nobody is doing better than you because nobody can do better than you. – YOU are walking your own path. Sometimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes circumstances with everyone else’s public highlight reel. Forget what everyone else is doing and achieving. Your life is about breaking your own limits and outgrowing yourself to live YOUR best life.
- Where you are right now is a necessary step. – Sometimes we avoid experiencing exactly where we are because we have developed a belief, based on our ideals, that it is not where we should be or want to be. But the truth is, where you are right now is exactly where you need to be to get to where you want to go tomorrow.
- Everything is coming together… maybe not immediately, but gradually. – When times are tough, remind yourself that no pain comes without a purpose. Move on from what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you. Pain is part of growing. Remember that there are two kinds of pain: pain that hurts and pain that changes you. When you roll with life, instead of resisting it, both kinds help you grow.
- It is your resistance to “what is” that causes your suffering. – Remember, happiness is allowing yourself to be perfectly OK with “what is,” rather than wishing for and worrying about “what is not.” “What is” is what’s supposed to be, or it would not be. The rest is just you, arguing with life. Think about that for a minute. This means your suffering only ever occurs when you resist how things are. You cannot control everything that happens to you; you can only control the way you respond to what happens. In your response is your power. (Read The Power of Now.)
- Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace. – Choose to be miserable and you’ll find plenty of reasons to be miserable. Choose to be peaceful and you’ll find plenty of reasons to be at peace. Think about it. Are you skilled at making yourself miserable? With those same skills you can make yourself motivated, effective and fulfilled. Do so.
- You are always good enough to try, and that’s what’s important in the end. – Everything you achieve comes from something you attempt. Make the attempt. Trust me, twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do. Give yourself a chance.
- There’s always something small you can do. – There is absolutely nothing about your present situation that prevents you from moving forward, one tiny step at a time. Remember, vision without action is just a daydream; vision must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, you must step up the stairs. And all you have to do is take one step at a time. Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tiptoe if you must, but take that step.
- Failures are really just lessons that need to be learned. – No day is ever wasted when you live it with purpose and presence. Value and enjoy the journey, even when there are detours along the way.
- Yesterday’s impossibilities may be possible today. – Experience is the hardest kind of teacher; it gives you the test first and the lesson afterward. But this is really a blessing. It means you’re growing stronger and more capable with every passing day. So don’t you dare give up on today because of the way things looked yesterday. Don’t even think about it.
- What “might happen” can only stop you if you let it. – Rather than worrying about what might happen, move forward and use your energy and intelligence to deal with what does actually happen.
- The quality of your vision drives the quality of your life. – It’s up to you how you visualize things and what you focus on. Forget what you don’t like. Focus on what excites you. If you see a possibility, explore it. If you have a dream, live it. Those who are passionate and excited about what they’re doing have an advantage that is nearly impossible to conquer. Be one of these people. (Read Mindset.)
- You don’t need to get everyone’s approval first. – Stop listening to what the world says you should want. Start listening to who you are. Truth be told, there are only a few people in this world who will stay 100% true to you, and YOU should be one of them.
- What you’re capable of achieving is greatly based on how much you want it. – When it means enough to you, then you can do it. When you are willing and committed and persistent, you will get yourself there, every time. Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural outcome of consistently applying your focused effort to what you want. The fatigue might be there sometimes, but you must understand that putting it aside is the single most important factor in succeeding.
- Your best bet is to give yourself no other choice. – It’s amazing what you can do when you have no other choice. In fact, achievement consists mostly of giving yourself no other choice. You are more than good enough; you just have to own it – you have to own everything you are and everything you’re up against. If you believe your troubles are too powerful, then you’ll never allow yourself to rise above them. Stop fretting. Quit worrying. Don’t complain. You know what you must do. So do it.
- You have to work hard on yourself too. – Self-respect, self-love, self-worth… there’s a reason they all start with “self.” You can’t receive them from anyone else. Earn the respect of others by having the audacity to respect yourself. Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with pots of gold at both ends. It’s your responsibility, above all, to see your own value. And this responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and deciding for you; it means learning to use your own brains and intuition to make things happen – hence, grappling with hard work. (Angel and I discuss this in detail in the “Self-Love” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
- You are stronger than whatever is troubling you. – Use each setback, each disappointment as a cue to push on ahead with more determination than ever before. When something bad happens, you can either let it define you, let it destroy you or let it strengthen you. The choice is yours. So pump yourself up! You are a lot stronger than you think you are. You may not be where you want to be yet, but look how far you’ve come. Celebrate the fact that you’re not where you used to be.
- For everything you’ve lost, you’ve gained something else. – Appreciate what you have today. Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful. No regrets, just lessons. No worries, just acceptance. No expectations, just gratitude. Life is too short. The story of your life has many chapters. One bad chapter doesn’t mean it’s the end. So stop re-reading the bad one already, and turn the page.
- You have made the best of some tough situations. – Smiling doesn’t always mean you’re happy with everything. Sometimes it just means you’re strong and smart enough to accept it and make the best of it.
- Your scars are symbols of your strength. – Don’t ever be ashamed of the scars life has left you with. A scar means the hurt is over and the wound is closed. It means you conquered the pain, learned a lesson, grew stronger, and moved forward. A scar is the tattoo of a triumph. So don’t allow your scars to hold you hostage. Don’t allow them to make you live your life in fear. You can’t make the scars in your life disappear, but you can change the way you see them. You can start seeing your scars as a sign of strength and not pain.
- You are still here trying. – If you have no other testimony right now, you have this one: “I’m still here trying.” Be positive, patient and persistent. The more you feel like quitting, the more there is to be gained by continuing to do all three. Because the strongest people aren’t the people who always win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.
Afterthoughts
The wisest, most loving, and well rounded people you have ever met are likely those who have known misery, known defeat, known the heartbreak of losing something or someone they loved, and have found their way out of the depths of their own despair. These people have experienced many ups and downs, and have gained an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, understanding and a deep loving wisdom. People like this aren’t born; they develop slowly over the course of time.
And you’re getting there.
The floor is yours…
So, which of the points in this post do you resonate with the most? What makes you feel “not good enough?” How have you coped with this negativity? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts and insights.
Photo by: Sander van der Wel
Here’s a thought loop I often find myself in: I’m submitting an article to a client, and I cringe, start sweating, and feel super anxious. That moment of cringe is followed by the awful “this isn’t good enough, and I’m not good enough.”
Then I think of the past, the future, how I failed, what will go wrong, and how my work isn’t good enough.
You probably know that it takes only one trigger to throw you into a loop of not feeling good enough.
These feelings often aren’t even caused by something other people do, but by a train of thought that we decide to hop on!
We can’t stop the moments that make us cringe, but we can decide what to do next.
How to deal with feeling not good enough
Much of not feeling good enough is self-imposed. We can feel that way without people rejecting us or saying mean stuff. My most powerful advice for these crippling feelings of not being good enough is to become aware. I’ve talked about this previously in how to deal with negative self-talk.
Your thought process starts somewhere, and you must become aware of it. A great practice is to talk aloud (if you can) every time you feel not good enough. If you can’t talk, write it down.
You’ll start to hear how ridiculous and out of touch with reality your thoughts are that trigger feelings of not being enough.
Take the role of a critical questioner. OK. So, you’re saying you’re not good enough because you once wrote a shitty article that nobody liked? Shouldn’t you judge yourself in a more wholesome way?
Advocate for yourself like you would do for a friend!
When you’re feeling not good enough for someone
“Nobody can make you feel inferior with your consent.” Before we talk about what other people do, we need to talk about what we do to ourselves.
Why do you feel not good enough for someone? Chances are you are projecting qualities onto them you hope to have for yourself. Or maybe they seem confident about things you feel insecure about.
Explore if it might be something like this, and then take responsibility for it. Not feeling good enough for someone can indicate that you want something that they are or that you admire something.
Feeling not good enough for someone part 2
People who play power games: ahhh. The world is full of them, unfortunately, and if you’re not aware of what’s happening, you will get pulled in and leave with a bitter aftertaste.
Power games are a style of “communication” people use to make themselves feel better, and others feel like shit. They do it to hype up their ego or to get something from the other person. Some people aren’t even aware they’re doing it.
If you always feel not good enough around specific people and not so much around others, ask yourself what it is exactly that makes you feel like shit. The people who are the best at making others feel less have a very clever way with words. After you leave them, you’ll rarely be able to pinpoint precisely what made you feel bad about the interaction.
Become aware of power games, consider your role, and take responsibility for it.
If you’re one of those super self-aware people who ask themselves: Hmmm. If I feel triggered, is there something that I need to work on? The short answer is no.
Some people just want to drag you into their power game; that’s all there is to it.
The solution: don’t play the game and don’t question yourself.
We carry our insecurities on our sleeve
When we feel not good enough about something, it’s like the world reflects it back to us. We see our lack everywhere, and we never miss one story of what we’re lacking.
When I moved to Australia in my early 20s, I had a tough time understanding the accent, which made me feel incredibly insecure.
I took a job in the restaurant of a hotel, and every time I was taking an order and didn’t understand what the person said, I’d feel so bad about myself.
When I made people repeat themselves, some of them were patient and kind, others neutral, and unfortunately, some people were plain rude.
But at some point, I finally got it: most people don’t think anything about me at all; they just want their egg sandwich. I’m the one who keeps on playing the story of “I’m not good enough because I don’t understand the accent.”
Nothing is final
Stay away from strong talk like “I am not good enough.” NEVER (in your head or aloud) use the words I AM followed by something negative.
We often look at ‘not feeling enough’ as a static condition that we can’t change anything about, but that’s not true.
We reinforce those feelings about ourselves every day with our thoughts. And we can choose a different direction.
If you catch yourself saying something limiting, rephrase the sentence. For example, when I catch myself saying “I can’t afford (..)”, I quickly correct myself and add a very insistent YET to the sentence.
This isn’t only a powerful trick to becoming more aware of your own limiting thoughts, it will help you get in touch with with you truly want.
Because when you keep telling yourself “I can’t afford this” “or I wish I could only (..)”, that gives you powerful information on what you want. Mel Robbins actually has a very empowering approach to feeling jealous of people.
Becoming genuinely aware of everything you think isn’t a small feat. That’s why little tricks like this to turn negative thoughts around can be so powerful.
We aren’t doing what we’re supposed to
An important reason we feel bad about ourselves is that we make life decisions that conflict with who we truly are.
So, if you’re at a point in your life where you wonder: why do I feel so bad about myself all the time, then explore in what areas of your life you’re not being truthful.
Maybe you’re chasing the wrong things, or you don’t like the career path you’re on. It could also be that all you know is that you want time and space to figure things out – but you’re not taking it.
Not feeling enough or feeling shitty about ourselves is often the result of us not listening to ourselves for long periods.
When we live a life that doesn’t feel like it’s truly ours, it’s no wonder that we feel not enough.
Integrity goes far beyond how we treat others and what values we have. It’s about honoring who we are and what kind of life we want to live.
If you enjoyed reading How To Overcome Not Feeling Enough
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Life has been defined by various personalities in numerous ways. Life to each is different because everybody is unique in this world. Therefore, don’t just get carried away by the definitions posted by many on life. Define your life in your way, depending on the direction it takes you. Erase the clutter of feeling not good enough, and now with a clear mindset, check what is stopping you in progressing in life. By listing down the reasons for not feeling good, you can work out how to overcome them.
Here are a couple of ways in which you can uplift your mood. By following them, you will certainly overcome the mentally ill state of affairs and travel towards a better mindset.
1. Comparing to others.
When you are not feeling good, you generally compare it with others. Ask yourself, ‘Am I good enough?’, but don’t begin to compare your bad with the good in others. Because, when you compare with others and identify with being a low performer, you begin to feel not good. If you observe with keen, both the above statements are the exact opposite, yet result in the same.
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t compare under any circumstance. But it is a human tendency. So, you cannot abstain from that act. Therefore, when you sit to compare the good in you with that of others, also, sit and compare the bad in you with the bad in others.
Because all human beings are unique, and each one has an edge in some or the other form over others. At the same time, all these unique pieces of human power are also imperfect in more than one form. Understand this law of life, apart from the answer to the question, ‘Am I good enough?’ and move on in life.
2. Negativity misguides you.
When you are occupied with too many unnecessary thoughts, they turn into anxieties and worries. With such negative thoughts, you begin to question, ‘Am I enough?’ and during the process, you drag down from within you, the hope of getting better. With discouraging thoughts that wander around in your mind, you misguide your goal.
Understand that thoughts are just thoughts, and they don’t essentially construct a framework that regulates and defines your life. Feeling not good enough at heart, followed by the thoughts of fears and apprehensions, exhausts the positive mindset in you, which forces you to act ruthlessly and unkindly.
Therefore, you have to completely stay alert in terms of the way you think and react. Replace the negative thoughts in you with positive thoughts or push yourself away from those bothering thoughts. Don’t let your mind lie to you and present a wrong opinion, the basis which you act.
3. Trust yourself with integrity at heart.
Spend time alone and talk to your feelings. Do check with them as to, ‘Why am I not good enough?’ Know your strengths and weaknesses in life and explore the opportunities and threats too.
Be honest and candid during this conversation. When you know that you are not feeling good, just trust your inner peace and move on.
You feel great when you begin to deliver acts of honesty from the heart. Thank the not so good feelings in you. Convince them that you will fix a meeting with them, for sure, later, but let them vacate the space in your mind now. Agree upon for a mutual discussion timeframe.
With integrity driving to uplift your mood, you easily tend to overcome the negative vibrations in and around you. You sense the feeling of being right with you. You now self-realize the answers for, ‘Am I enough?’ All these surface up a path with new thoughts that result in constructive ideas and productive actions.
4. Love and let love.
When your mind is in a state of anger and fear, it will automatically route you towards being inferior, sub-standard, and corners you towards a depressive state of thoughts, assuming that you will never be good enough. Therefore, you need to be in the company of loved ones all along.
Live and let others live. Try to sphere your thoughts towards positivity and help yourself live in the moment. With acts of mindfulness, also let people around you live life to the fullest, by assisting with all the necessary skills and resources, to the maximum possible extent.
Be specific in choosing the company of people. External sources certainly cast their share of negative influence over you, cornering you to think that you will never be good enough. Therefore, you have to syndicate up with like-minded people. Encourage the companionship of people who are filled with positive energies.
Having said all this, one theory on life has to be taken for granted. Life is a replica of a mere mathematics textbook. In the sense that, as you keep turning pages in this textbook, you come across more and more bunch of problems.
Similarly, as you keep witnessing day after day in life, you keep encountering more problems. Each day is a new day in the life, just as each page in the textbook has unique content or different questions. But, understand that, towards the end of this big book, you plot answers to all the questions that you went by in the previous pages.
Therefore, have patience in life and act mindfully by reasoning with your inner voice as to, ‘Why am I not good enough?’ Probe to understand the underlying reasons. Be practical in life. Think and analyze from the ground-level realities.
Make yourself feel good. Because for sure, every problem has a solution. Just that few are under your control, and few aren’t. For all those over which you cannot gain control, time will answer them. Just keep enough patience to turn till the last folio where all your questions are answered and all the problems in your life couple up with their solutions.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
Louise L. Hay
It’s so easy be dragged down by your own thoughts.
So easy to not feel like “I’m not good enough”.
Not good enough to maybe to go for the job or promotion you want. Or out on a date with that person you’d really like to get to know better.
Or even as you do your best you may feel like it’s still not good enough. And so you feel that you’re not good enough either.
Such thoughts combined with the pressures and stress of today’s world can quickly start tearing your confidence in yourself and your self-esteem to pieces.
I think most of us have been in that situation.
I’ve been there many times. And let those thoughts hold me down and back from what I wanted.
But I’ve also – over the years – learned quite a few things that help me to prevent those thoughts from popping up in the first place. And to handle them when they do come running towards me.
1. You don’t have listen to your inner critic (you can shut it down).
When I was younger then I didn’t know I had an inner critic. A voice inside of me that would tell me that I was lazy, that my plan wouldn’t work and that I could have done an even better job.
The inner critic could sometimes motivate me to work smarter and do better. But most often it just tore me down.
I also didn’t know that you don’t have to listen to everything your mind is telling you. That you can actually talk back to that inner critic in your head.
But when it pipes up nowadays I know what works best for me is to – in my mind – shout:
Stop!
Or: No, no, no… we’re not going down that path again!
And the quicker I do that after the critic starts babbling the easier it will be to shut it down.
2. Find the exception to open up your mind again.
When you’re lost in a snowball of thoughts of how you’re not good enough then it can be tough to change your headspace to a more positive one once again.
You may think to yourself you’re not doing a good job at all in school. Or that your dating life sucks.
When I get lost in such thoughts I like to ask myself:
What’s one small exception to that though?
When I, for example, asked myself this one during my school years I’d remember that I was actually doing well in English class. Or, later on, that I had some nice dates with that one person 5 months ago.
And that small exception opened up my mind to more rays of optimistic light.
To finding more positive things that were actually in my life and that I had done or was doing at the time.
3. Make a list and then take a few minutes to soak in your positive memories.
Take out a pen and a piece of paper. Or a blank memo note on your smart phone.
And simply think back. To times and situations when you felt good enough.
Or to times when you may not have felt quite good enough at first but still took action and did well or even better than you had expected.
Write a few such memories down. And then when you feel uncertain or your confidence drops in some situation then pull out that note and soak in those memories for a few minutes to change your outlook.
4. Stop getting stuck in the comparison trap.
When you all too often compare yourself to others, to what they have and what they’ve done then you’re getting yourself stuck in the comparison trap.
This destructive habit tends to feed that feeling of not being good enough.
Because this habitual comparing is not a game you can win.
There will always be someone that’s better than you or that has more or has achieved more. Somewhere out there in your neighborhood, country or the world.
I’ve found that a much better alternative for me has been to compare myself to myself. To see how far I’ve come and what I’ve overcome.
Making that a habit and only occasionally checking out what other people are doing also makes it easier to not be envious but to be happy for their successes.
5. What people share online is usually a high-light reel.
In the past you had to sit down and think about what friends and acquaintances may have had. Or perhaps turn on the TV to see how someone famous lived.
Nowadays it’s often right there as soon as you pick up your smart phone or sit down in front of your laptop.
It’s harder to avoid the comparison trap these days then it was 10 or 15 years ago.
But one thing I try to keep in mind and that really helps when it comes to social media is this:
What people are sharing is a high-light reel of their lives.
Nothing wrong with that. But if you think that’s how their lives look all the time then you’re likely fooling yourself and making yourself feel worse without any real reason.
Because they usually share just the happiest, most fun and exciting moments of their lives. But no matter who they are everyone will still have bad days, get a knock-out flu, eat some food they shouldn’t have and they’ll have their own worries.
So don’t fall into the trap of comparing your low-points or everyday life with someone else’s high-light reel.
6. You may not want to check social media more than once a day.
I find that I can quite easily revert back into the comparison trap and into starting to feel like I’m not good enough if I check social media too often or spend too much time there.
Checking it quickly just once a day is enough for me and it keeps my focus and thoughts in the right place.
7. You can always start small with a right thing string to change how you feel.
One thing I like to do in the morning or when I’m not feeling too good about myself and that helps me to keep my self-esteem stable is what I like to call a right thing string.
Here’s what you do:
Do something that you deep down think is the right thing. Do it right now…
- Give a genuine compliment to someone at school, work or in your life.
- Take 3 minutes to unclutter your workspace.
- Or help someone out with a bit of information that they’re looking for.
Then add another thing that you think is the right thing to do.
Have a banana instead of candy or potato chips. When you feel like judging someone on social media or on TV then try to find a kinder and more understanding point of view.
Then add another thing. And another.
Build a small string of doing the right things during, for example, 10-30 minutes.
When you’ve added a right thing to your string – no matter how small it may be – make sure to take just a couple of seconds to pause and to appreciate the good thing you did.
I often think one of these things to myself:
- Excellent!
- Well done!
- That was fun!
Building a string like this makes you feel good about yourself again, it will over time raise your self-esteem and help to keep it stable and it’s simply a good and fun way to put yourself into a better headspace again.
8. Celebrate all wins.
Not only the big ones. Because then you’ll wait a long time between celebrations and run the risk of only feeling good about yourself when you’ve reached such a peak in life.
I’ve learned that it tends to work better to keep the motivation and self-confidence up if I celebrate all wins. No matter how small.
One small step forward is still one small step forward and you need to take such steps no matter what lofty goal you want to reach.
So celebrate those wins too in some way. Maybe with a pat on your back, a tasty and delicious snack or a quiet break out in nature.
9. It really helps to let it out.
Keeping these thoughts bottled up can make them spiral out of control.
Letting them out can help you to look at things from a more grounded and constructive perspective.
Three ways to let it out are:
Vent about these thoughts as someone close to you simply listens.
Do this for a little while to release the pent up tensions and to figure things out for yourself.
Discuss it with a friend.
Let her add her perspective. Or ask him what he’s done in a similar situation.
Your friend can ground you in reality again so you don’t start making a horrific mountain out of a molehill or medium-sized hill.
And the two of you can perhaps come up with a plan for how you can start improving upon the specific situation you’re in where you’re not feeling good enough (such as preparing for that job interview or that date).
Journal about it.
If you don’t have anyone close to you to talk to about this – or you don’t want to for some reason – then a helpful alternative is to journal about it.
Just get all those thoughts swirling around in your head out of paper or in a digital document.
This is similar to venting and seeing it all laid out before you can help you to more easily get an overview, find clarity and a realistic size of your challenge and see what you can do to improve upon the situation.
10. Don’t beat yourself up. There are much better ways to motivate yourself.
Beating yourself up can renew your motivation to do better the next time.
But it will most likely cause more hurt than it will help you in the long run as it drags you down mentally and may often extinguish your motivation instead of renewing it.
So find another way to motivate yourself that won’t push your respect and love for yourself down such as:
- Be kinder and more constructive when you talk to yourself.
- Let it out as mentioned above.
- Look for small or tiny steps you can take today to improve the situation you’re in.
- Start building a right thing string.
And remember that just because plenty of people beat themselves up all the time or because you’ve done it many times in the past doesn’t mean that it’s the healthiest or best way to move forward again.
11. Focus on and take responsibility for the process.
If you focus on the process instead of always hoping for a certain result then you’ll be a lot more relaxed, the pressure you put on yourself will be greatly reduced and the feeling of not being good enough will diminish too.
When you focus on the process then you just take responsibility for showing up and taking action.
That’s it.
No matter if that’s at work, while building your own business or at the gym.
Results will come anyway from that consistent action. And from you focusing on your process and adjusting it along the way as you learn more about what works and what does not.
I’ve found that if I focus on the process instead of obsessing about some result I want as soon as possible – or preferably even sooner – then my patience and persistence grows and I’m lot more likely to continue on my path even I hit a rough patch or two (or five).
12. What someone has said or done to you may not be about you.
The criticism or verbal attacks you may have received this morning or during the past year might not have been about you at all.
So don’t make the common mistake of thinking it’s all about you.
Someone close to you, at work or at school could simply have had a bad week, month or year.
Or he or she may be in a bad marriage, dissatisfied with his/her career or carrying an old and heavy baggage of negativity that someone else once put on him or her.
Remind yourself of this when you don’t feel good enough because of what someone else may have said or done. And realize that you don’t have to carry their baggage and negativity.
That belongs to them. Not you.
13. You can and may need to make some real changes in your environment to feel better.
Whatever we let into our minds will have a big effect. No matter if those influences are positive or negative.
So you may need to make some changes in your environment to feel better about yourself.
Otherwise you’re always trying to move forward while powerful weights are holding and dragging you back.
A simple start to that process of step-by-step changing your day to day world is to ask yourself this:
What are the top 3 sources of negativity in my life?
It could be:
- Someone close to you or at work or in school.
- A social media account.
- A website or forum you visit every week.
- Or a TV-show, podcast, music, magazine and so on.
Then ask yourself:
What can I do to spend less time with these 3 sources this week?
Come up with one or a few action-steps for each of the sources if possible. And focus on taking action to reduce the influence and time you spend on at least one of these sources this week.
And then, during the next 7 days, spend the time you’ve now freed up with the most supportive, uplifting and positive sources – close by or far away in the world – and people in your life.
Want more motivation? You may find this post with you are enough quotes and this one about knowing your true worth helpful.
No matter how successful our life may look or feel, if there’s something we are always going to struggle with it is the feeling of not being good enough. We might have excellent grades in school, a full-time job, have loving friends and a long-term partner but from time to time the idea that we’re not good enough can come to dominate our minds. “I’m not good enough for the job”, “I’m not attractive”, “I’m not very popular” or “I’m not enough for my girlfriend/boyfriend” are just some of the ways that this feeling can show up and have a huge impact on how we think, feel and behave.
The feeling of not being good enough can lead people to develop what is known as the “impostor syndrome”. With this people question all their achievements and convince themselves that they’re a fraud about to be caught out at any time. To make matters worse, we can also start thinking that everyone around us is so much better at what they do. Social media seems to just amplify that everyone else is having a better life than us and perhaps causing us to think“she has a much better job than me”, “Look at their family, they are perfect together; that’s nothing like ours”, “I will never be like him/her”. This is probably something you can relate to.
Our inner critic can be so loud that it can completely
paralyse us. When this happens, we may begin to accept it as a true
representation of reality, with the result that we stop doing what we truly
care about. You can probably remember a time when you didn’t do something
because your “not good enough” thoughts showed up.
If we are interested in developing ourselves and creating a meaningful life, we need to find ways to deal with these thoughts before they paralyse us and prevent us from doing what we truly value in life.
So what would be an effective way of dealing with those thoughts?
Recognise that old ways of dealing with it don’t work
When those thoughts showed up in the past what did you try to overcome them? Did you try suppressing them at all costs as if they were not there? Perhaps saying things, “get away”, “just stop”. You might have tried to avoid them by doing something that makes you feel better, to take your mind away for the unpleasantness. Binge eating and drinking, taking tranquillizers and watching TV mindlessly are common strategies that we all use. Or perhaps you tried to control the thoughts? Maybe using positive thinking, repeating affirmations, saying you are the most perfect person in the world, all in an attempt to counter those negative thoughts. Another common strategy is to avoid situations that relate to those thoughts. For example, if you think you are not good enough to find a partner, you might avoid meeting new people. Or if you think you are not good enough at your job, you might start avoiding some tasks and challenges that could lead to a promotion.
Just ask yourself: did it really work? Did those thoughts disappear? Are they no longer a problem? I would guess that they didn’t work for you, otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this article. Imagine how much valuable time you wasted in this attempt to rid yourself of these feelings. How long did you spend trying to control, suppress or avoid them? What if you had used this time to build a life that has a purpose for you? Would things be different now?
Step one is to recognise that common strategies don’t work. Once you realise that, you can begin to develop new skills that do work. The alternative steps presented here are all backed-up by science using a mindfulness-based psychological approach called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Don’t fight with them – Accept that they are common and natural
To change our relationship with these persistent thoughts, we need to understand that our minds tend to operate automatically and that we have much less control over our minds than we imagine. If you want to test this, just try to stop thinking for 30 seconds or so. How did you do? Did you stop thinking? Or did you notice that thoughts seemed to come out of nowhere?
To make things worse, we have what psychologists call “the negativity bias” that makes negative experiences more prominent than positives one. You can probably recall having a really good day, full of positive experiences but all that was needed to ruin it was one bad interaction with a work colleague or a message from your partner complaining about something you forgot. That bad interaction stayed with you for a long time. It’s understood now that our brains are hardwired like this to help us survive. In our early days as a species, paying attention to the negative was a matter of life and death. Remember it’s your mind trying to save you. And that is an important function of the human mind, but this mechanism can sometimes work against us.
If we can’t control our thoughts and they are almost automatic, what can we do?
What if, instead of trying to control, suppress and avoid them, you could just allow them to be? This is where acceptance comes in. When we accept our feelings, we simply allow them to be. We don’t fight against them and we don’t try to change them. Eventually, they will go away. An attitude of acceptance allows us to avoid spending precious time trying to control the uncontrollable and instead frees us to do what we care about despite the unwanted thoughts and feelings.
We don’t fight against them and we don’t try to change them. Eventually, they will go away.
Don’t buy into your thoughts
Once we realise that thoughts are automatic and tend to carry an element of negative bias, we can start changing our relationship with them. There is a key difference between having a thought and buying into a thought. We have thoughts all the time, every day. They could be reminders of things we have to do for a job, a plan for how to spend the weekend, something to buy at the supermarket or they could be about the world or ourselves. That’s quite easy to understand, but how can one not buy into a thought? Imagine that your mind is like a shop offering a great variety of products. Some of the products you like, some you don’t, some are important to you as they help you live your life better, some don’t add much to your life but you still feel persuaded to get them. Just like visiting a shop, you don’t get to choose what products they offer. You may dislike that they have a big section of something you don’t find useful or even hate but it’s most likely that you’ll just see that, acknowledge it and you move on to get what you think is important. You can choose to engage with the products you believe are useful to you.
You can do the same with your thoughts. You may have some thoughts that you don’t like, some you love and some that you are neutral about. In the same way that you choose products in a shop, you can choose which thoughts to pay attention to. So if you see a thought that you don’t like, just acknowledge it, saying something like “ oh that’s a negative thought” and move on to the what is really important to you.
Another useful way to disengage from those thoughts is by creating distance from them. You can do this by saying things like “My mind is saying that I’m an idiot” or “My mind is saying that I’m not good enough for the job”. By doing this we can create some distance from our thoughts and reduce its impacts on us. We start seeing that the mind has its own ideas that don’t depend much on our will. It’s almost as it’s coming from someone else. And like when thoughts come from other people, we can choose not to get engaged with them if we don’t find the discussion meaningful.
Be more present
Be more mindful, live in the moment, practise meditation. These are familiar words we often hear, and for good reason. Usually, when we have a negative thought about ourselves, those thoughts tend to be about something in the past. We can’t just stop ruminating about them thinking things like “why did I do that?” “Why am I so stupid?”. Or they could be about the future when we imagine the uncountable ways things can go wrong for us, thoughts like “I’m sure she will leave me, I’m not enough for her” or “I’ll screw things up again in tomorrow’s presentation”.
If we stop to focus on what’s really happening at the moment, we would see that this uncomfortable feeling is coming just from our minds. There’s nothing currently threatening us. Our minds are creating this anxiety. So it makes sense to develop the skill of slowly moving away from what’s happening inside of our minds to what’s actually happening at the moment.
One of the useful ways to bring you back to the present moment is to use short reminders or prompts to make your attention move outwards. A good one is to ask from time to time “What is happening right now?”. By doing that you will acknowledge what’s happening and will slowly train your attention to the now. For example, you can say “I’m having a thought about tomorrow’s presentation” “I’m sitting on my desk doing some work” “ I can hear people talking in the next room”.
A closely related reminder is to pay attention to your surroundings using the “5-4-3-2-1” tool. Looking for 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 you can smell and 1 you can taste. That will help you disengage with your thoughts and will make you connect to what’s happening around you instead of being lost in a spiral of thoughts.
Engage with what’s truly important to you
That leads us to the final point when dealing with thoughts
that we are “not being good enough”. Whenever we engage with negative thoughts,
we miss out on what’s truly important to us. The thoughts seem so real and
powerful that we can get carried away by them and lose focus on our values and
the kind of person we want to be.
Having a clear picture of what is meaningful to us and connecting with that is an effective way to reduce the impact of whatever our minds create. A good example of this would be of an athlete preparing for a prestigious competition. It’s almost certain that during preparation much doubt would emerge, making the athlete question her abilities. By connecting with the value of “courage” and “skilfulness”, this athlete would change her behaviour and focus on how important is for her to be brave in the face of difficulty and that she wants to be the kind of person that is always looking for ways to improve her skills. In the name of a “bigger cause”, her personal values, she can make space for any thoughts that may arrive. If you don’t have a clear picture of what your values are, ask yourself simple questions like “What’s really important” and “What do I want to stand for in life?”. Or, by imagining that you are having your 80th birthday party and that at this party people will make speeches about you. What would you like them to say about you and your qualities? What kind of qualities do you most admire? Once you have clarified your values, use them to guide your actions in the world. Stop from time to time and just ask: “Is what I am about to do connected to any of my values?” “Is this the kind of person I want to be? Even if we are not athletes we can have these examples in mind and ask ourselves “Am I willing to have these uncomfortable feelings in the name of something bigger?”
Written by:
Filipe Bastos
Founder of:
www.mindowl.org
MindOwl Founder – My own struggles in life have led me to this path of understanding the human condition. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy before completing a master’s degree in psychology at Regent’s University London. I then completed a postgraduate diploma in philosophical counselling before being trained in ACT (Acceptance and commitment therapy).
I’ve spent the last eight years studying the encounter of meditative practices with modern psychology.
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One of the biggest things that I work on with clients, and something that we even devote time to during our life coach training program, is this: the fear that you’re not good enough.
The fear that you’re not good enough is a fear routine that affects everyone, though it shows up differently for each person (for some of you, “not good enough” expresses itself as going into workaholic over-achiever mode; for others it shows up as comparisons; for others it shows up as procrastination and avoidance and not finishing what you start).
So let’s unpack this feeling not good enough thing, a bit.
The Logical Fallacies of “Not Good Enough”
There are logical fallacies that underlie the fear of not being good enough. A logical fallacy is something that might seem logical or try to be based in logic, but the logic falls through because certain underlying assumptions that would make it true, just aren’t there.
Logical Fallacy #1: That “enough” can be clearly defined.
Consider this question: How would you even begin to define what qualifies as “good enough”?
You can probably list several ideas: “I’d be good enough if I…didn’t snap at my kids, made more money, lost X number of pounds, actually committed deeply to my spiritual practice, stopped procrastinating…”
But then we start to deconstruct this definition of “enough”–so please hang in here with me, and read each word, carefully, because this might be the start of your freedom from feeling not enough.
Can you really define what makes a person “enough”? Can you really define what makes you “enough”?
Walk through this with me: If someone makes plenty of money and is the “perfect” weight and is deeply committed to her spiritual practice and never procrastinates, many of the markers we tell ourselves would determine our own “enoughness”…
…how do you know for sure that those factors make her “enough”? Or what if she does all of those things–but she also yells at her kids. What if she has a massive rage-fest, one time a year, and she’s a perfect mother every other day of the year? What then?
I’m sure you see the point I’m getting at–that this “enough” idea is essentially undefinable. The boundaries are loose and impermeable.
Logical Fallacy #2: If I understand where I first started to think I’m not good enough, then I’ll be able to believe that I am good enough.
This one is only partially true. It’s only helpful if you’re going to use that understanding to see, in a compassionate way, the pain that the message-bearer was in when they imprinted their criticism and hurt onto you. In other words, it’s helpful to see that whoever taught you that you weren’t good enough, only taught you that because they didn’t believe that they were good enough.
Unfortunately, I see that a lot of well-intentioned coaches, therapists, workshop leaders, etc., will then encourage their clients to tell that person to “Fuck off” in an angry letter that they’ll never send, or they’ll find all the ways in which the early message-bearer was a screw-up and thus can’t be trusted, or they’ll instruct their clients to “not listen” to that voice, or even to tell that “not enough” voice to “Shut up!” every time they hear it.
That doesn’t work. If you try to feel like you are good enough by yelling at the person who first told you you weren’t “enough” or the voice inside that criticizes you… you’re just doing the same thing; you’ve responded to abuse by becoming the abuser.
Logical Fallacy #3: That finding evidence of your enough-ness and affirming it (“I am enough; I am enough”), will help you to feel like you are good enough.
First, this doesn’t work because it buys right back into the idea that there even is a definition of “good enough.” The loop of trying to find the evidence in the first place, keeps you stuck in perpetually needing to find more evidence.
Second, this doesn’t work because you being good enough isn’t something you need to accrue evidence for. You already are good enough.
Now, I know that you’ve heard this, “You are already good enough” before, but let me illustrate this with a visual picture:
Imagine standing in a room where there’s a table with a buffet of food.
Except, you are standing with your back to a buffet table of food. Imagine it: a long table, tons of food, and it’s all right there, but you’re standing with your back to it. Because you’re standing this way, you’re assuming that there is no food. Because you’re assuming that there is no food, you’re saying “I HAVE FOOD. I HAVE FOOD” over and over, in the hopes that then the food will come.
If you’d only stop assuming that the food isn’t there in the first place, you’d see that it’s actually there. The striving and chaos of hustling to be good enough is predicated on a belief that you aren’t fundamentally good enough, to begin with. This hustling ends up turning you in circles–it’s the hustling that’s distracting you from what’s already there.
It’s all already there. You are already good enough.
Hustling to do things to be good enough, isn’t what makes someone good enough.
Saying, “I am good enough; I feel good enough” over and over isn’t what makes you feel that way.
The Truth About Enough
Here’s what does make you start feeling good enough:
No longer assuming that you’re not good enough.
No longer turning your back to the fact that you are good enough.
No longer trying to find evidence that you are good enough.
All you need is to question definitions of “enough” (or deserving, worthiness, or “mattering” to others). As you question, listen carefully to what the voice is saying and the wound that it expresses.
Start to ask yourself why this voice would say this. What wound might prompt a voice to say such a thing–that you aren’t enough, aren’t deserving, or don’t matter?
That’s where you’ll find the help you’re looking for–within the voice that sounds so angry, but that is actually so wounded and so desperate for help that it’s going to start screaming, if it has to. If you’re desperate for water, your behavior will get more desperate. The hungrier you are, the more irritable you are. When you’re emotionally starving, the needs of those emotions, demanding nourishment, also get more extreme.
Listen to the voices of not good enough, and you’ll learn what they are really saying.
The voices of “not good enough” are really saying…
This voice that tells you that you aren’t enough…might just be an addiction. It literally might be this thing that you turn to, as a means of self-sabotage and playing victim. You might realize with startling clarity that you don’t actually, truly, honestly believe you “aren’t enough,” and that it’s become something of a habit to tell yourself this for any number of reasons.
It’s through listening without attachment to this voice, that you learn this valuable information and can then give less weight to the message–next time it comes up, you might take a breath and say to yourself, “Ah, yes. I totally see how I’m turning to that old message, again.”
*
This voice that tells you that you aren’t enough…might have a fear that its needs won’t be met. Maybe you go to a place of thinking about how you’re “not good enough” because assuming that your lack of goodness is the major problem in your life, feels less vulnerable than actually taking action and making changes.
It’s through listening without attachment to that voice, that you’ll learn this valuable information and can get to the important business of meeting your truest needs.
*
This voice that tells you that you aren’t enough…might be confused about what it means to make mistakes, and thus it might have a fear of making them. This “not good enough” voice might think that making mistakes is the worst thing in the world, and that it’s protecting you by telling you that you aren’t good enough. This voice might think that then, you won’t go out into the world and make mistakes or be rejected or risk failure. It might be a self-protection mechanism disguised in angry inner critic voices.
The voice of not enough might not realize that actually, what would really help when you make mistakes is developing resilience through self-forgiveness.
The voice of feeling not enough might have also been taught that forgiveness is for wimps and chumps who let people take advantage of them; forgiveness is the same as pretending something didn’t happen; forgiveness means that what abuses did happen are somehow okay.
It’s through listening without attachment to this voice, not hoping and praying that you’ll finally figure out the “not enough” equation, that you might realize: “Holy shit. No one ever taught me about forgiveness, in my family. People were mad at you until the storm passed, and if I made a mistake, I had to bow and scrape my way into their good graces until they stopped being mad, which is not actually ‘forgiveness.’ If I learn how to actually forgive–what that process looks like–I’ll have another option for recognizing that when I make mistakes, I can repair that without beating up on myself.”
It’s listening to the voice–not rejecting it, making it bad or wrong, or trying to sprinkle affirmation fairy dust on it until it goes away–that gives you this incredibly insightful information.
Flip It
Next time you ask yourself what it is that you struggle with, don’t say that your primary issue is “feeling like I’m not good enough.”
Say that your primary issue is struggling with listening to the voice. Say that your challenge is really about wanting to ignore the voice or beat that voice down (you and me both, sister–this is an ongoing journey).
Next time you’re tempted to go into “not enough” or any messages that are close-cousins, here’s one simple mantra that can replace those forced affirmations: “I’ll discover something, if I listen without attachment.”
Or here are two questions to ask yourself: “What are my definitions of ‘good enough’ and ‘not good enough’? Can I really define these?”
Spend less time searching for the enough-ness (trust me; the buffet table is right there).
Spend more time noticing and deconstructing the stuff that sits in the way when you’re ready to pull up a chair and feast.