How to Get Over the Idea that You are "Not Good Enough"?

Note: This article is taken from the blog of "Margaret Rutherford," in which she talks about overcoming the idea of ​​"I'm not good enough."

My parents were trying to teach me (if I didn't catch it from their actions at all) the importance of striving for excellence. They were promoting what some psychologists call "constructive perfectionism" or "healthy perfectionism," which is a personality trait related to finding pleasure and even satisfaction in life by doing things as well as you can.

In the case of constructive perfectionism or positive perfectionism, the focus is process-oriented. You learn from mistakes or even failure, which is generally considered a useful trait associated with being more conscientious and self-disciplined than usual.

However, perfectionism can have a downside. American academic and author Brené Brown defined this type of perfectionism in her first book, The Gifts of Imperfection, in 2010 as “a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this thought: If I live perfectly and do all things perfectly, I can avoid or lessen the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

This form of perfectionism, fueled by an inner shame that must be repressed, involves trying to meet persistent expectations about what "perfect" is. This kind of idealism is not satisfying and is far from pleasant. However, many people feel obligated to act as if everything is perfect. They believe that not doing so means imperfection.

This is known in the broader psychology literature as "unhealthy perfectionism" or "destructive perfectionism." In such a case, there is no relationship between the goal and the course of the process. They are directed at a specific target that presses you hard. I believe they are contributing to an increase in mental health problems.

Constructive perfectionists—let's say they are swimmers—want to outdo themselves and do their best, and that brings with it all kinds of positive vibes. Winning the race is excellent if they can make it, while destructive perfectionists want to be the perfect swimmer. Here, the goal is to win every race. Shame addresses them if they do not achieve this, saying they are worthless.

Many perfectionists will find themselves somewhere on a spectrum between these two poles, but within my clinical studies, I've noticed another problem. Paradoxically, destructive perfectionists don't even believe they are perfectionists because they never believe that their best is good enough. There is always an achievement to look forward to.

So where do the roots of destructive perfectionism lie? I think that people often develop this way of thinking and living as they grow up without developing a sense of support, safety, and care, or it can also be a reaction to certain childhood abuses or harsh expectations in their cultural environment. 

Perfectionism becomes an inevitable strategy for emotional survival, and vulnerability becomes humiliating.

Over the past decade, I've treated more and more people who didn't quite know why they came to a therapist. They erect huge barriers to revealing any kind of emotional pain; I wondered if they even had the ability to express such feelings. On the surface, they did not appear depressed at all; they would describe their issues and problems as if they were caused by excessive work, exhaustion, or some anxiety.

My interpretation is that they were destructive perfectionists. Their motivation is running out, however, and they are not sure what is wrong or if there is a mistake at all. Their emotional pain was skillfully hidden, often without them realizing it.

When I ask them if they are depressed, I hear stern denials, and they say, "I have so many blessings in my life." If I ask them if their childhood offered them safety and security, they laugh and deny or belittle the idea that there is any problem. Sometimes they become very quiet and look out the window as if they wish they were anywhere but my office.

But with more sessions, they slowly risk sharing secrets with some shyness, and the seemingly impenetrable cloak of their silence slips away, revealing their overwhelming sense of loneliness and desperation.

In many cases, I have found that when they let their caution down, they can also understand that what is “wrong” or unhealthy may not fit the traditional definition of depression, but the issue is as real and devastating as depression.

I began searching popular literature on perfection, shame, and the fear of vulnerability and found a wealth of research on the importance of vulnerability and the price of shame by the aforementioned Brown, earlier thoughts on "hidden depression" by author and family psychiatrist Terrence Real, and the book Self-Compassion by psychologist Kristin Neff from 2015.

But I didn't find anything conclusive for the general public about the relationship between perfectionism and a potentially serious form of depression. So, drawing on the experiences and stories of the many clients I've seen in my practice over the past 25 years, I've formulated my own thoughts on this unique problem and how it can be addressed more effectively and empathetically.

My book, Perfectly Hidden Depression, from 2019, is based on how a serious form of depression fueled by perfectionism can affect someone's life and how even if someone scores low on measures of depression, they can live with deep-seated emotional difficulties and unresolved traumatic experiences, which may ultimately threaten his will to live. This is the syndrome I call "hidden depression."

I have identified ten characteristics that appear in the daily decision-making and behavior of people who show signs of this syndrome:

1. You are a very idealistic person, and your idealism is fueled by a constant, insistent inner voice of shame or extreme fear.
2. You show an increased or excessive sense of responsibility and look for solutions.
3. You find it difficult to accept and express painful feelings. This keeps you more analytical, or you can say "stuck in your head."
4. You dismiss, reject, or deny past or present abuse or trauma.
5. You worry a lot (but you hide the habit) and avoid situations where you are not in control.
6. You are highly focused on tasks and on the expectations of others, using achievement as a way to feel important. However, as soon as you finish your last achievement, a new pressure imposes itself on you, and you neglect any success.
7. You have an active and sincere concern for the safety of others while allowing little, if any, entry into your inner world.
8. You have emotional difficulty with personal intimacy, but you show great professional success.
9. You may have associated mental health issues that involve anxiety and control issues, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), panic, or eating disorders.

If you read these traits and find that you identify with many or all of them, this can be somewhat reassuring; it can give you a clue as to why you feel the way you do, how you didn't know what was wrong, and how ashamed you were to even think about it.

If you have now suddenly grasped the subject, you must realize that you cannot bring yourself to share any vulnerability, or perhaps you may recognize these traits in another person. Know what comes: I have found that there is an antidote to a completely hidden depression, and that is self-acceptance.

So what should you do?

If you believe that you are an unhealthy perfectionist and that this can mask your deeply rooted emotional issues, I suggest five phases that can help you: Awareness, Commitment, Confrontation, Connection, and Change.

Phase one: Awareness

This phase indicates the importance of realizing that your perfectionism is a problem in the first place. Although being able to identify one's problems is part of every emotional and mental healing process, this stage may be particularly difficult for you because you have convinced yourself that your perfectionism is normal or not a problem.

You may be wondering: (Isn't this the case for everyone?). The answer to your question is "no." However, abandoning or modifying a strategy in order to achieve external success is likely to be very difficult. In fact, the process of avoiding any painful feelings and memories may become something you do unconsciously.

There are various ways to develop insight into the role destructive idealism plays in your life, and mindfulness is one exercise you can try for yourself.

Mindfulness is very much about changing how you pay attention to something. Mindfulness deepens your experience of the present moment. Here's an easy mindfulness technique: Sit in a comfortable place, set a timer for three to five minutes, breathe deeply, close your eyes, keep your focus and breath as much as possible, count from 1 to 10, and start over. If your mind wanders, which it will, gently let go of those thoughts and refocus on your breathing.

When the timer goes off, check your emotions while your eyes are still closed. There can be irritation, relief, or a feeling of silliness. You can easily notice it and watch it slowly dissipate.

Becoming aware requires patience. As you practice mindfulness, you will begin to notice more about how you interact with both your outer and inner worlds, including developing insights into how the need to look perfect has seeped into almost every aspect of your life.

Phase two: Commitment

Letting go of your perfectionism will feel like throwing off your armor in the middle of a fight.

As you become more aware of the problems that perfectionism causes you, you still find it difficult to change. Ironically (and devastatingly), this can turn into another goal you want to ideally reach and achieve.

I have found that there are five main obstacles to realizing that wholeness that challenges you in your mind and heart:

1. You make a commitment that's so strict that it leads you to drop the whole thing, or you want to quit once you haven't done it perfectly or just stumbled a bit.
2. Starting with a goal that is too difficult or too big.
3. Going through it on your own and not asking for help.
4. Dealing with the fear and shame of letting go of your familiar coping strategies while your stress builds up here.
5. Other mental difficulties you have may be exacerbated by stress, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or an eating disorder.

Changing the objective from 'commitment' to 'intent' is the same. One of the best strategies to overcome the first two possible obstacles mentioned is to be less tyrannical and carry more compassion and self-forgiveness.

Highlighting the third hurdle, try this writing exercise: Write down instances when you can remember when you didn't ask for help but, too late, realized it would have been helpful for you to do so. Think back and repeat what you could have said or asked.

Practice those sentences that come out of your mouth and listen to yourself as you say them. How does that make you feel? Now think about the present and about a situation in which you could ask for help.

This will increase your awareness of how your need to appear controlling prevents you from asking for help. And when you actually start practicing the question, it will seem as if you are an actor. The practice itself can help you create a new sense of yourself. You are someone who can ask for help, and they do ask for it.

You may find the fourth hurdle on the list to be the hardest. Letting go of your perfectionism will feel like throwing off your armor in the middle of a fight. You've been using it as a coping mechanism for a long time, even if it backfires.

Journaling is one of the best ways to start writing down when, where, and how you tend to hide your feelings again, so you can better predict when you are likely to stumble. If this happens, remember the complex reasons behind this habitual behavior and try to be kind to yourself.

The fifth hurdle on the list is a reminder that tackling your perfectionism won't be easy, and you may need to take a break from that work and pay attention to any worsening clinical symptoms such as anxiety or another disorder.

Phase three: Confrontation

Let's talk about the difference between personal beliefs and norms. The rules you set for yourself govern your behavior, while your beliefs are something you accept to be true.  The two interact with each other. It is likely that your beliefs influence the rules that you set for yourself. At the same time, the rules you follow can limit or expand your beliefs.

For example, you might have a rule that says, "I always put a smile on my face, no matter what," and it is linked to the belief that, "People won't like me if I don't smile."

The confrontation phase involves defining the rules by which you live, perhaps without even realizing it: what is or is not allowed, what you should do, what you must do, what you should always do, and what you should never do. It's all in your head all the time, but are those still rules you want to follow?

They can be rules spoken by your family, the culture in which you live, risks to you, things expected of you, or they may only be understood without being spoken at all.

If you decide that one of your rules does not serve you well, write another rule that can replace the previous one. It can be somewhat liberating when you realize that you can substitute one rule for another. You begin to imagine a life where you can live more freely, and that can be a turning point in life.

Phase four: Communication

if you don't connect with and heal your emotional hurt, anger, or sadness, it will rule your life in ways you can't see or imagine

If you've been following these phases and starting this journey, you may have become more aware of your own vulnerability.

Getting in touch with feelings you've long suppressed can be a little intimidating. When you consider things like controlling, pleasing, and constantly putting pressure on yourself, you may feel that all of these choices have protected you. While facing shame, communicating anger, and acknowledging exhaustion, you can be afraid of feeling too exposed.

Look at the turtle, for example. At any sign of danger, the turtle will pull its head back and wait. Likewise, if you are prone to destructive perfectionism born out of a difficult past, you also likely tend to withdraw into any shell that comes your way when painful feelings start to surface.

The aforementioned I Don't Want to Talk About It book by Terrence Riel has the most appropriate quote: He talks to his patient about emotional vulnerability, a man who was doing his best to understand why it's so important to deal with difficult emotions. He finally says, "You either feel the pain or you live with it, right? Isn't that what you're trying to tell me?"

He got to the bottom of it. The point is, if you don't connect with and heal your emotional hurt, anger, or sadness, it will rule your life in ways you can't see or imagine, and you'll end up blindly living with it.

If you feel safe and secure and have support on hand when you need it, here's an exercise to help you better connect with your difficult feelings.

(Please do not do this alone if you have experienced severe trauma in the past. You will need guidance and support from an experienced person so that you can safely communicate with this pain.)

Carefully create a time table; divide the table with a horizontal line by years of age; write, for example, “2, 4, 8, 12, 20,” and so on. You will go back in time and write down the good and bad things that happened to you.

It will take courage to face the denial that still wants to emerge and then say, "It wasn't that bad." You will not weep. Rather, you will begin to see patterns and connections between events, and hopefully you will come to self-compassion.

This exercise can be powerful when you go back and acknowledge the things that made you who you are today—all those positive gifts you received and how your talents and skills led you to success.

But you also glorify the pain from your past that you minimized, dismissed, forgot about, or avoided. You allow yourself to realize that you are the sum of your experiences. Self-compassion—that is, recognizing the impact of whatever pain was involved and showing the same compassion you would freely give to another—gives strength and empowerment. There is no reason to hide; you can accept what hides inside you entirely and accept yourself with everything in you.

The preconfrontation phase and this communication phase are where you will discover why you start needing to look perfect. To build on the exercises you've already completed, ask yourself what messages you've received in the past about your value and safety in your relationships. Realize that you don't have to live by these rules or avoid pain anymore.

Connecting with pain teaches you that it is bearable and that your weaknesses do not define you any more than they do your successes.

Phase five: Change

In my years as a physician, I have learned the benefits of insight, which hopefully will increase as I work through the communication phase and read this guide. Insight provides the appropriate context and understanding. However, changing your behavior is the source of your influx of hope. That is, seeing positive results from your efforts, and this is the final phase. You find hope.

So, as a final exercise, review the ten traits I listed above that are linked to perfectionist-fueled depression and think with a trustworthy friend, partner, parent, or therapist about specific ways you can start putting your insight into action and taking serious risks by changing your behavior. In other words, live each day differently, make different decisions, and treat yourself more kindly.

Pick the easiest and try it; it's not something you have to do perfectly. And remember, you are in the midst of a journey.

Often, someone comes into a therapy session and starts saying, "I tried something new, but it wasn't that big of a problem." I would reply to them that every change in a desired and welcome direction is a matter of high importance.

This phase allows you to choose every little step you're willing to take—whether it's saying no, letting someone else drive, or taking the risk of trusting a friend—and gets you excited about celebrating those changes.