I Didn’t Realize This Was a Pattern
I’ve written before about perfection and how there is no such thing as perfect, but knowing that and actually living it are two very different things. For most of my life, I wasn’t actually living that way. I thought I was just someone with high standards. I thought I cared. I thought I was driven. I told myself maybe I was just a little too type A and that was all this was.
I spent years trying to achieve something that doesn’t actually exist. Perfection, or at least what my version of it was at the time. At work, in relationships, with family and friends, I set the bar so high there was no real way to feel like I had ever reached it. It left me completely exhausted, and underneath all of it was this constant feeling I didn’t have language for at the time.
That I wasn’t good enough.
Everything Started To Feel Like Proof
When I look back now, I can see how consistent that feeling was. Every rejection seemed to point to the same conclusion.
Not getting a job I thought I was a perfect fit for. A relationship ending in a way I didn’t expect. Missing out on a promotion I worked hard for while watching others move ahead. Not being included in things with people I thought I was close to.
I thought the problem was what kept happening to me.
It was what I kept making it mean.
Each one of those experiences hurt on its own, but what made them heavier was what I made them mean. I didn’t just experience them. I interpreted them.
I turned them into proof.
Proof that something about me was lacking. Proof that I wasn’t chosen. Proof that no matter how much I did, it still wasn’t enough.
At the time, I didn’t question it. It never occurred to me that this could be a belief I was carrying. It just felt like the truth.
Learning About the Good Enough Principle
It wasn’t until recently that I learned about the Good Enough Principle, and it reframed everything for me even more. The idea behind it is that progress is a better goal than perfection, and I remember thinking, wow, what a healthy way of looking at literally everything.
Am I better at doing x, y, or z than I was yesterday? Yes? Amazing!
Does that mean I’m done? No.
Am I going to stop trying to grow and improve and be better? Also no.
That’s the part that actually stuck with me. It’s not about lowering the bar or suddenly not caring. It’s about not measuring yourself against something impossible anymore. It’s not a destination. It’s not meant to be.
It’s just a goal. A very healthy and realistic one.
What Is The Good Enough Principle?
At its core, the Good Enough Principle explains that people tend to operate from one of two beliefs: either that they are fundamentally enough as they are, or that they are not and need to prove it through what they do. (Is this sounding familiar to anyone? I bet it does.)
When you’re operating from the belief that you’re not enough, it creates a cycle. You strive, achieve, and get validation, which feels good for a moment, but it doesn’t last because the belief underneath hasn’t changed. So you go after the next thing, hoping that will finally be the one that makes you feel like you’ve arrived.
But you never actually arrive.
You just keep resetting the standard.
Once the belief “I’m not good enough” is formed, people tend to look for ways to confirm it through their experiences, often without realizing it.
When I heard that, it hit immediately.
Because that’s exactly what I had been doing.
Seeing My Own Pattern In It
For years, I thought I was reacting to what was happening in my life. I thought the feeling came from rejection, missed opportunities, and relationships that didn’t work out.
Looking at it now, it was the other way around.
I had the belief first, and then I used those experiences to validate and reinforce it.
I had the belief first, and then I used those experiences to validate and reinforce it. Every time something didn’t go the way I expected, it pointed me back to the same conclusion. And even when things did go well, the relief didn’t last because I was still measuring myself against something that kept moving.
You don’t reach enough in that cycle.
You redefine it.
Ever heard the expression “moving the goalposts”? Yeah… this is exactly that.
For a long time, I thought the solution was to try harder. Be better. Get it right. If I could just meet the standard I had set for myself, then the feeling would go away.
It never did.
There might be moments where I felt good, more certain, more okay, but they didn’t stick. The standard would shift, and I would find myself right back in the same place, trying to close a gap that never stayed closed.
I wasn’t lacking effort.
I was measuring myself against something that kept moving.
What Actually Changed (And What Didn’t)
Learning about the Good Enough Principle didn’t suddenly fix everything, and it didn’t flip a switch. What it did was change how I relate to something I already understood.
I’m more aware of when I fall into the pattern, and I’m quicker to catch it before it runs everything.
I still care. I still want to improve. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is the pressure behind it.
I’m not using every outcome to decide where I stand in the same way anymore. I’m not turning every interaction into a reflection of my worth. There’s more space now, and that space changes how everything feels, even when nothing externally has changed.
There’s also a level of freedom and peace that comes with that, and I don’t think I realized how heavy that weight was until it started to lift.
I used to believe that I was one perfect outcome, one better version of myself, or one different result away from finally feeling like enough.
I don’t think that’s true anymore.
And I hope after reading this, you can start to see it’s probably not true for you either.
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