Are You Enough?

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Happy Thursday,

Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders and spent nearly 4,000 hours in one-to-one conversations. When the door closes and the conversation gets candid, one thing comes up remarkably often.

Behind the confidence, competence, bravado and impressive job titles, many leaders never feel like they are enough.

They question their decisions, replay mistakes and worry about whether they’re doing enough, achieving enough or living up to what others expect of them.

I know this feeling well. I’ve spent much of my own career wrestling with it.

And here’s what I find fascinating. Some of the people who struggle the most with that feeling of “not being enough” are also among the most accomplished people I’ve ever worked with.

So why doesn’t achieving more seem to fix it?

🧠 LEARN something.

The feeling of “not being enough” can, of course, stem from many different causes.

But one psychological lens that helps us understand this and practically do something about it comes from self-discrepancy theory, developed by E. Tory Higgins.

It simply suggests that we compare who we are with who we want to be and who we think we should be. An easy way of understanding this is to think of it as three different versions of ourselves that we are always carrying in our heads.

1. Who we believe we are (Actual Self)

2. Who we’d ideally like to be (Ideal Self)

3. Who we think we should be (Ought Self or Expected Self)

As you can imagine, the three versions can be very different.

The distance between these versions can be a powerful motivator because it gives us goals, standards and something to work towards.

But it can also create a rather exhausting way to live.

For example, when we start measuring our worth against an ideal version of ourselves, there’s always a gap to close. Another qualification to earn, course to complete, promotion to chase, financial goal to achieve, business milestone to reach or a new personal best to hit at the gym.

And when we finally achieve something, the satisfaction can be surprisingly short-lived.

We set an ambitious goal, work our butts off to achieve it, celebrate for about two minutes flat and then immediately start thinking about what’s next and how we are still not good enough.

Yesterday’s extraordinary achievement becomes today’s bare minimum expectation.

As a result, we become more objectively successful without necessarily feeling like we are successful.

🤔 THINK about it.

I don’t think, and I am certainly not suggesting, that ambition is the problem. Wanting to achieve more, improve ourselves and do meaningful work is a good thing.

The problem begins when we quietly make our sense of ‘being enough’ conditional on achieving those things, like getting the promotion, reaching the next business milestone or achieving that KPI at work.

But the real question is: what happens when we achieve it?

Do you feel successful, or do you simply replace one condition with another?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable part is that we don’t always notice we’re doing it. From the outside, it looks like ambition. From the inside, it can feel like constantly falling short.

Think about someone on your team who has achieved something difficult. You’d probably recognise them and even encourage them to recognise their own progress, appreciate what they’ve accomplished and feel proud of their efforts. Right?

Yet many of us struggle to offer ourselves the same recognition and satisfaction.

We treat our achievements as evidence that we should now be capable of even more, rather than evidence of how far we’ve come.

Somewhere along the way, we start to confuse wanting to achieve more with not having achieved enough, and eventually with not being good enough.

✅ DO IT to get results.

Here’s something I’d encourage you to try.

Think of a goal you’re currently chasing. Something that matters to you, whether professionally or personally.

Now ask yourself: What am I expecting this achievement to prove about me?

Is it simply something you want to accomplish? Or are you hoping it will finally make you feel successful, capable, respected or good enough?

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing the goal. But perhaps it’s worth questioning what meaning you have attached to it, and whether it deserves that meaning.

You can still want more for tomorrow without believing that today is not good enough.

Until next week, keep it real, and stay curious!

Kenny

CEO & Founder | The Bridge Leaders