You are enough...believe me.
I could say ‘til I’m blue in the face that you are good enough, you are more than enough, you are working hard enough, and you are not lazy. But would you believe me?
I’ve talked a lot this week with clients, friends and family around the idea of being ‘enough’ under the expectations we put on ourselves; we’ve talked about convincing ourselves we are enough (and the work that entails); and we’ve also talked about the struggle to believe others when they tell us we are enough or to trust that they mean what they say.
There are so many things at play here. Firstly, a lack of trust in ourselves and our worth, perhaps a perfectionist tendency that we adopted somewhere along the road to appease and please parents, to keep ourselves safe, and to keep as much control as possible.
Secondly, when we’ve convinced ourselves that we are never quite good enough - and if we’re anything less than perfect we’ve failed - we have a very hard time being convinced otherwise. We know logically that we’re only human and we’re allowed to make mistakes. We know logically that we are doing the best we can, that we are good at our jobs, and we are good friends and partner’s. But our mind still spins with the what ifs and self-criticism.
Finally, because we can’t accept the idea that we might in fact be enough, we can’t accept others telling us we are… even if we feel we’re seeking external validation.
Perfectionism is a learnt behaviour that is designed to avoid feelings of letting others down; to avoid feeling guilt and shame; and is a fear driven response to gain love and acceptance. It leads to us setting unachievable expectations of ourselves that we would never apply to anyone else.
Perfectionism keeps us trapped in a loop of never feeling good enough. We can’t achieve the unachievable expectations we set for ourselves so fuel our belief of inadequacy… proving ourselves right.
We cannot accept compliments from others because it goes against what we believe about ourselves… “they don’t know, they caught me on a good day, they’re just telling me what they think I want I want to hear.”
How do we start to move away from the feelings of inadequacy and into a more confident, calm place?
Define what ‘good enough’ actually is for you. I explored this with some clients this week and we quickly realised it’s extremely difficult to articulate what the standard is we’re trying to reach. Therefore, we’re setting ourselves an impossible goal. If you can’t define it, you can’t reach it. Let it go!
Define your expectations of ‘good enough’ when it comes to other people around you. This tends to be vastly different from the expectation we set for ourselves and allows for mistakes and imperfection. Let’s start to take the pressure off a little and match our expectations of others to our expectations of ourselves.
Develop a practice of hearing the kind things people are saying to you and letting them in. The more we accept a complement, the more we give ourselves chance to believe it. So next time someone says you did a great job, pause before you give all the self limiting reasons why you got lucky and it all worked out, and simply say thankyou.
You are more than enough. You are doing your best. You are working hard enough. Believe me!