What is Good Enough?
I hear about this phenomenon more and more often from people around me these days. What does it even mean being good enough? Good enough for what/who? The society, family, partner, boss, etc.? Who or what is setting the measure?
Maybe it’s all about a perception, about the glasses we see the world through or about the expectation we have.
Where is it Coming From: My Experience
I haven’t really experienced a full range of this feeling before coming to New Zealand. I was always doing well at school, at uni and in other activities I was doing. I was confident, a little bit shy but still very confident inside. However, after being a while in New Zealand I started to suffer from the feeling of not being good enough.
I was living long-term abroad by myself for the first time, working in customer services for the first time and I started to teach first public yoga classes. I was teaching yoga to people who were native English speakers and some of them practiced yoga longer than I did. I felt there was pressure on me. I was doing the best I could but I wanted to be perfect right away. I spontaneously begun to compare myself to my colleagues and sometimes even to random people I knew nothing about. Gradually the feelings accumulated, and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of not being good enough. Not being enough to teach yoga, to work in a cafe, I even felt not being good enough at washing dishes. It sounds so ridiculous, when I look back. But the feeling was real.
Obviously, at first I had to stop compare myself to other people. One never knows enough about the person one compares to. What the person experienced in the past, what is experiencing now and so on. One can rather get inspired by the more experienced people and learn from them.
Perfect Imperfection
I participated in an amazing workshop holding by Malaika at NZ Spirit Festival. She said: “Look at nature! It’s perfect but not perfect. Imagine flower wanting to look like the flower next to it”. All the flowers are beautiful and they don’t look the same. Imagine the world with only one type of flower because they would have decided that one of them looks the best and all of them want to look like the one. It wouldn’t work. There is a need for diversity.
Why is This Fear so Self-limiting
As there is a certain number of seconds every day, there is also a certain amount of thoughts one can think each day. It is usually between 50 000 – 70 000 thoughts a day. That means one has “limited” number of thoughts. a day And you decide what kind of thoughts you are thinking. You choose if the thoughts are either negative or positive, either self-limiting or growing. It’s your responsibility how you use the capacity of thoughts you have.
It basically slows you to do what you want to do because you are wasting your energy and time on useless thoughts.
Imagine that thoughts would be money. Would you spend them for things you don’t want to have in your life? 😊
Conclusion: How do I get over this feeling
I realized that this feeling is not helpful at all and the only thing I can do is to work on myself doing the best I can despite the circumstances I have at the moment. I’m also working on healthy mindset, avoiding comparison and competitive thinking. We are all unique, having different qualities and the world needs us to be who we truly are!
My yoga teacher says “Trust the process”. Although I don’t feel I’m progressing, there are changes happening under the surface. One can’t see a plant growing by observing it but it does grow!
What is your way to deal with this feelings? Let me know in comments. ♥
Michaela
