Dr. Laura Blog

Every person on the face of the earth (outside of hardcore narcissists and sociopaths) has experienced the fear and discomfort of not feeling good enough. Here’s how to challenge it:

1. Understand what’s causing your fear. Are you actually not good at what you’re trying to do, or are you concerned that others perceive you as not good enough? You need to know where the idea of not being good enough comes from. Just because someone (mom, dad, sibling, teacher, etc.) said it, doesn’t make it true. People say things for all sorts of reasons - hostility, insensitivity, stupidity, etc. If you hold their opinions as truth, it can destroy your life.

2. Don’t hide. In order to function in life, you have to put yourself out there. Even if you don’t feel very confident, decide that you’re going to do it anyway. Confidence comes through practice. Besides, you don’t know you’re bad at something until you try.

3. Value perseverance over success. So what if you failed? What matters is that you persevered. I would take perseverance over natural talent in anything because natural talent is just that, it’s natural. It doesn’t require much effort on top of that. However, in order to persevere, you have to expose and invest yourself.

4. Celebrate your victories. Instead of hating yourself for what you did wrong, appreciate what you did right. Look at your supposed failure and find some part of it that impressed you.