Managing the Bane of “Not Good Enough”

I hate the phrase, “I’m not good enough.” I hear it in my head all the damned time and it makes me bonky.

Sometimes it’s dead-on accurate. Sometimes my writing needs a whole lot of scrub-a-dub-dub or a heartless head-on with a set of Ginsus. Sometimes I’m not engaged enough with my family and friends and need a good, swift kick in the ass to get my head back in the game.

Other times it’s just brutal self-mutilation of my self-esteem; an internal bashing of my skills or actions driven by nothing more than a deep-seated need for approval.

The trick is figuring out when to listen.

This is when my trusty victims friends and family come in. I fill my life with people I admire and can trust—people who not only get me, but appreciate my quirkiness and aren’t out to transform me into someone….well….unquirky. I call/beg/stalk these patient folks, get their feedback, and try to listen. (My self-doubt is really loud, so trying to listen is harder than one might think.)

My other go-to tool is perspective. I (try) to take a step back and look at the piece of work/situation from a holistic view. Again, not always the easiest task to maneuver because my self-doubt tends to be something of a neodymium magnet in addition to screeching at high decibels, but it’s a mental muscle I’m determined to develop.

What about you? Do you struggle with feeling good enough? Or do you have some other emotional ball of slime you try to tame with mental chopsticks? How do you cope?