“Why Am I Not Good Enough?” See Your Mistakes

Have you ever felt like a fraud in life?

You go through your days, do your job, comfort sad friends, make your partner happy, make your parents happy, make your boss happy, make your colleagues happy… And you succeed in tricking them that all is well with you.

But nothing is okay. You play the role of “I am confident!“, “I can do it!“, “It’s all going exactly as I wanted!” when in reality, you feel like you are not good enough with any of the things I listed above.

Half of the time, you fake your knowledge at work, you fake how happy you are every Monday morning at the office, you fake everything’s fine in front of your partner, you lie to your parents that life is great, and you almost believe it sometimes.

“Why am I not good enough?” whispers in your tired soul on the quiet Friday night, and you try to push that guilt on the back of your mind, but it comes back again and again.

You do your best with everything and everyone, but you just feel like you aren’t good enough in anything.

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When you think you are not good enough…

I was you a while ago, and I know exactly what it feels like to have a fake life that pleases everyone but you. And even though you often try to open up in front of your closest people, you meet misunderstanding, weird looks, and “You’ll be fine!” answers.

But when you think you are not good enough, life feels like a scene in a theatre, and you are just an actor – underpaid, depressed, untalented.

When you think you are not good enough, the sun comes out not to warm the earth but to expose your flaws and issues.

When you think you are not good enough, nothing feels good enough to help you overcome this emotion.

Because it is just that – a feeling. Not a fact. Not a reality. Not You.

And while that emotion feels real, and you are very dedicated to finding the proof that you are, indeed, “not good enough”, it is still just an emotion.

“Nothing I do is good enough!”

Says who?

If you head over to this post on learning how to believe in yourself, you will read a short story of how my stepmom used to tell me that I would never be good at anything, and overall, I will most likely end up a homeless failure.

And I believed her for a very long time. I could hear her voice in my head for many years – nagging, judging, and mocking me.

When I graduated high school, I went to live with my mom, and I entered another series of mental challenges – nothing I did was good enough, according to her.

I never cooked delicious enough, I never cleaned well enough, I never said the right things, and I never treated her the way she wanted me. I was never good enough, even while working full-time, studying remotely at the uni, paying most of the bills at home, paying off loans, and staying only home, so I never spent more than I should.

I just wasn’t good enough.

And I wanted to please her so much.

I ended up hating myself, going through a rebellion personality period when I was in my mid-20s, and ultimately ruining my mental and physical health to please her.

She judged me even more and refused to help in any other way, but through mocking… long story short – I developed depression, and suicidal thoughts started circling my head more often than I would admit.

Not good at life

When I felt not good at life, I had two options… To give it up or to see what’s next.

I chose the second one.

When I felt not good at life, I chose to live it on my terms, ignoring other people’s opinions, feelings, ideas, advice, judging.

Because no one walked in my shoes and no one experienced what I did. And while those experiences aren’t something tragic, devastating, life-threatening… they were mine and affected me.

Just like your experiences are one hundred percent yours only, and no one could truly understand what you go through.

That is why you feel so alone in all of it.

That is why you feel you aren’t good enough.

It is because you ultimately refuse to accept yourself just as who you are – good or not good enough, tall or short, thin or curvy, with a crooked nose or thick ankles…

And here’s a tiny little secret for you…

You weren’t born to be good enough!

None of us came on this earth to be “good enough”. We are all here to learn, experience and the less “good enough” you are, the greater the personal growth.

The less “good enough” you are, the happier you become.

The idea of being “good enough” was either placed into your head by someone you value and look up to or influenced by the sparkles on social media.

In both cases, it was a feeling you adopted.

We are all programmed to be happy. When we were children, our natural state would be happiness, freedom, love.

Later on, pushed by our parents, the school, and unmet expectations, we are taught that there is a standard we should chase and live up to.

So we chase.

We chase it so much for so long that we forget what we chase but still nurture the feeling of “not quite there”. And “not quite there” becomes “not good enough” too quickly. Once we enter that vicious circle, we completely give control over our life to everyone and everything else but us.

Acitonable steps for when you feel like you are not good enough

I did more than a few things when I wasn’t feeling good enough in anything. This blog is dedicated to all of them, so be sure to keep being noisy once you finish with this post.

Here are just a few of the things you can do today to stop feeling “not good enough”.

Accept yourself for who you are

I know, such a cliche, you almost want to roll your eyes. Please, do so. But then also accept yourself with the same passion and dedication.

The mere fact you are not feeling good enough is a confirmation you do not accept yourself as who you are.

Regardless of how hard you try to convince others, everything is fine; you and I know that if you accepted yourself for who you are, you wouldn’t even consider the “good enough” dilemma a real thing.

I have an extended post with my personal thoughts on how to accept yourself fully right here.

Accept others for who they are

Things aren’t always happening inside our heads only (or maybe they do).

Accepting others for who they are is actually easier than accepting yourself, but equally essential.

Even those who annoy you or stress you are present in your life to teach you a lesson. Do you see that lesson?

Accepting people for who they are is actually a very selfish and healthy thing. You shrug your shoulders, and you move on with your life because that is who they are, and this is who you are.

Add a pinch of self-love to it

If I must summarise the answer to your “Why am I not good enough?” question, that would be: Because you lack self-love!

Most of us lack self-love. They take baths, do yoga, drink water, and still don’t love themselves enough to feel “good” and “happy”.

That is because self-love is self-nurturing on a deeper level. It is letting go of self-hatred and giving up on the endless demands to be better than who you are. By loving yourself today, you are already better than who you were yesterday. Embrace it. Embrace yourself.

And if you feel like self-hatred is your ultimate struggle, I strongly recommend reading this short story here.

How do you deal with not being good enough?

You don’t deal with it!

You don’t do anything about it because it is unreal.

You are good enough, and this is your birthright, just like freedom and happiness.

“Good enough” is a relative term to use when we look at a piece of clothing and wonder if it’s good enough for the weather outside.

“Good enough” is the milk in the fridge before its expiry date.

“Good enough” is a term to use for objects and items around us, not for people.

I am good enough. You are good enough. He/she is good enough. Maybe we should start learning that in schools.

And if someone makes you feel like you aren’t “good enough”, they don’t deserve their place in your life.

Good Enough Conclusion

If you still don’t see the answer to your question, I would assume you didn’t read the post slowly and with an open mind. The complicated answer you are looking for doesn’t exist. More importantly – it shouldn’t exist!

Life is simple regardless of how hard we try to complicate it.

Just follow your birthright and … well, that’s good enough!

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