How To Overcome The Feeling Of Not Being Good Enough In Your Career

One of the most debilitating and universal human emotions is the feeling of not being good enough. In a world that seems faster and more competitive than ever, the gap between the capabilities of individuals and the expectations of others can widen quickly. As a result, people feel like they're constantly being judged, always coming up short. Often, these feelings are accompanied by anxiety, which leads to people putting even more pressure on themselves to succeed, perpetuating a self-defeating and counterproductive cycle.

Are you constantly beating yourself up that you should be more, do more, or have something else ?

Do you find yourself pressured to reach for the next best thing and in the process you lose all you are?

Every day, we’re bombarded by expectations that make us feel we aren’t smart enough, or that our jobs aren’t good enough, and that we aren’t even happy enough.

Also, it seems like "accepting oneself " comes so naturally for other people who appear to have it all—they have that killer body, a big house, and a career that you can only dream of. 

If you had all of that, you’d finally accept yourself, right?

Wrong.

Why? Okay Let me take you back in time when we were children- and what I have learned about how I internalized this message of "not good enough".

Since the beginning, as children we define our world by the love and care we receive from our caregivers. The main goal is to be loved. We internalize our environment and believe that to be happy and get more love is to have and make sure Mommy and Daddy are happy. "When Mommy is happy, she will play with me and spend time with me. When Daddy is not busy, he will be nicer to all of us.”

Kids want peace, love and harmony in their lives and need it to thrive emotionally. So, if it is not there, guess what they do? They try to build their conditional loving world and learn to fix it by trying to be "a better and better kid”, or they may also try the opposite and act out to get their parents to focus on them. A child knows no different. They take this on as "It must be me". Their inner chatter would sound something like :

“It must be my fault if my parent is busy or angry, or can’t love me. I must be unlovable. I will clean my room tonight and then my parents won’t fight.  

But, wait they do fight and they don’t even notice. It didn’t work. I am not good enough, or powerful enough, or worthy.” So the child ends up carrying parents issues and struggles and takes on their emotional weight as “If only I could do more.”

Makes sense?

If you are reading this and it resonates, I wish you start looking at this emotional weight and realize it doesn't belong to you. What you have perceived as a child , is not your fault.

You do not have to "do more" to be loved, or to fix the situation. It is not your weight, and its time to release the burden of carrying your family's baggage.

While it seems easy to comprehend intellectually, I know that understanding this emotionally when the voices in your head are loud is not an easy job.

The way I try to take the pressure off myself and of the people who I work is it’s a direction to work towards ongoing journey which seems to be a clever way to reduce the pop up voice that says that’s not true.

If you feel you have just started to understand this, please know that walking towards enough-ness is an ongoing process of learning and unlearning.

The guidelines below will help lay down the limiting beliefs of not enough-ness, and give tools to handle your career stress and pressure and finding our own authentic expression.

Start Feeling MORE The problem is not that we are not enough, it is that we don’t allow ourselves to FEEL and get intimate with life right enough. 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.” Eckhart Tolle explains the power of now as “most humans are never present in the moment, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one, but then you miss your whole life, which is never not now". What if instead of looking FOR more, you start looking AT it ? Act like a tourist. Be Astonished. Be amazed and wowed. Notice the abundance, the little things in your world, and what you already have. Notice every moment of awe and gratitude. Pay attention. Become aware of the loveliness in your life right now.

Stop comparing yourself to others We all compare ourselves to other people, and I can assure you that the people who seem to have it all do not. It is this conditioned belief that what we need is always outside us and sometimes the reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our “behind-the-scenes circumstances' with everyone else’s public highlight social media. When you look at other people through a lens of compassion and understanding rather than judgment and jealousy, you are better able to see them for what they are—human beings. They are beautifully imperfect human beings going through the same universal challenges that we all go through.  

Baby yourself when you feel you deserve it the least This can be a powerful exercise. Get one of your baby pictures and revitalize your sense of lovability and self-acceptance. Look at the baby in the photo, Would you scornfully tell that baby “you are disgusting, you have no willpower , you are not worthy or “stop being a baby”? I find that it is most difficult to accept love and understanding from others when I’m in a state of anger, anxiety and shame, but adopting this exercise really helps in connecting to my inner child and give myself what I needed at that time-some kind of support and love. Love is the greatest gift you can give to yourself during such times.  

Appreciate and acknowledge yourself “Until you stop breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.” a powerful reminder quote inspired from Jon Kabat-Zinn. Get in touch with the qualities about yourself that you like and appreciate. Connect daily with at least three things that you are proud of accomplishing, and encourage yourself. Think of all the qualities it takes to achieve those things. Make a journal. Write down all the things you already have, love and appreciate. keep writing.

Focus on progress Focus on how far you’ve come rather than on how far you have left to go. Keep your eyes on the prize but stay unattached. One of the biggest causes of self-loathing is this fixation to “get there, or need to get it right.” We strive for perfection(which no one really comprehend what perfection is) , and when we fall short, we feel less worthless.  

You can’t hate your way into loving yourself Telling yourself what a failure you are, won’t make you any more successful. Telling yourself you’re worthless and unlovable won’t make you feel any more worthy or lovable. Be-aware of Language. Our language shapes us. Trade in those worn out phrases with “Yeah, I’m wowed… Yeah, It’s amazing" — so that the eyes hear what they could look for right here.

Want to learn more on how to walk towards enoughness?

Tune in to episode 51 on living in alignment podcast and learn from our guest Mandy Lehto.