Why Do I Feel I’m Not Good Enough?

“I’m not good enough.” It’s one of the most common things I hear in therapy sessions. When I ask what people believe about themselves when upset about a situation, about half of people respond with some variation of Not Good Enough.

I frequently see likable, intelligent, driven people who are overwhelmed with anxiety and stress from trying to do all the things to succeed at work and in relationships. In our culture even self-care has become an arena for optimization. To some people, true relaxation or doing nothing feels threatening, like a step on a slippery slope to failure or losing a tenuous sense of control of the to-do list. And underneath it all is that insidious fear that despite it all you’re just not good enough.

One one level it’s understandable. We live in a competitive culture, with a winner take all mentality dominating many areas of life, from sports, to dating, to acceptance to college, to access to job opportunities. We’re drowning in social media messages manipulated to falsely project perfection. And despite social progress, discrimination and hate speech dripping with racism, sexism, and intolerance of LGBTQ+ folks is all too common. No wonder so many people conclude they’re not good enough.

Roots in Childhood Experience

And yet as a therapist I recognize that pervasive feelings of not being good enough sometimes have deeper causes with roots in childhood trauma. In recent years the understanding of what constitutes trauma has broadened from the old thinking that you had to be a victim of violence or terror of death to have trauma. The modern definition I use is that if something from your past has lasting and serious effects on your self-esteem, relationship patterns, and emotions, it’s trauma.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family is the most common cause of childhood trauma. Sometimes dysfunction is obvious, with frequent chaos and fear caused by violence, rage, poverty, alcoholism or addiction, sexual abuse, or parental mental illness and instability.

Frequently children from these types of homes become hyper-responsible, trying to avoid triggering their caregivers and make things more predictable by people pleasing, achieving, and managing. Of course this fails. You don’t have the power to change anyone else’s behavior. But children don’t know this. You may conclude it’s your fault, there’s something wrong with you, or you’re not good enough. And verbally abusive parents will compound the problem by telling you this directly, berating and blaming you for their problems.