It’s easy to believe that we are not enough, thoughts about accomplishing too little are with us daily. By comparing ourselves to those who started earlier, are better, faster, richer, we strive to feel equal or superior. We carefully choose those who we pay attention to as if we craved this feeling of dissatisfaction and inadequacy. We follow, watch and obsess about the idolized lives of others. We even created a special term, we are now “living vicariously through” other people’s lives. This expression got normalized, we openly admit that we live through the lives of others instead of living our own.
This feeling of not being enough paralyzes us to the point that we are not able to focus on one thing. We overwhelm ourselves not being able to decide what we should start and master. Each area has those who are better and who make us feel inadequate. We look at this group of people, all being masters of different things and we want to beat them all. If only we were consistent at that one thing but this would force us to stop watching other masters. Plus how would being enough feel? Would we feel so uncomfortable that we would have to focus on the new master and have a new benchmark? What if we ceased feeling inadequate and stopped playing a victim? If we refocused our efforts on our own progress, we’d start thriving. To do that we need to accept where we are, who we are and wholeheartedly know that we are enough.
That’s why you start where you are. Not where you wish you were. Not where you hope you are. Not where you think you should be. But right where you are.- Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, Designing Your Life
Dissatisfaction became a trend. We downplay our experiences and good becomes “not that great” or “you never know.” We consciously choose to focus on what we’re missing, what doesn’t work and what we’re striving for. We present our work saying apologetically that we were not at our best. We feel that what we have is not finished and we’re not ready to show it. This striving for perfection paralyzes us. The feeling of not being good enough prevents us from starting a business, transitioning into our creative career and designing the life we want. We lack creative confidence and present our work and ourselves in this unattractive, apologetic way. Our potential clients move on to those who represent themselves in the appealing light — confident in their talent and loving products they created. We keep missing out on opportunities taken by those who show up with creative confidence.
Stop what you are doing and let this sink in: You are enough.
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If you liked this article you may find this one interesting as well:
Ambition, Gratitude And Taste Of Enough
I can describe the taste of enough. It’s like a cloud — beautiful and airy, it feels fresh and comfortable. This taste…medium.com
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Originally published at medium.com