You Are Enough (really, you are)

💭 Go deeper: We talk more about this in episode #283 of the Joy Lab Podcast

You are enough, exactly as you are, and you are also still growing. Both are true at once.

That's the opening premise of Joy Lab's new Element of Enoughness. Here's our definition of Enoughness:

Enoughness is an inner knowing that you are enough just as you are, with acceptance of where you are at this moment, without giving up on where you're headed.

It's also important to distinguish Enoughness from self-esteem, particularly the kind of hollow self-esteem that nearly all of us were victims of during the 1980s and 90s. That was the era that ignited a self-esteem movement that likely negatively impacted [ironically] our self-worth and sense of enoughness. 

Enoughness is something different and quieter than what we were sold with self-esteem. It's a kind of neutral ground that's solid enough so you can take criticism, make mistakes, and apologize without feeling like you've lost your right to exist. You can still feel like enough.

We get that actually living from that space of enoughness, really feeling it in the body as a stable, unshakeable knowing rather than a fragile thing that depends on the last performance review or the last comment someone made... is far harder than it sounds.

 Dr. Jennifer Crocker's research on "contingencies of self-worth" explains a big part of why. The idea is that we don't stake our self-esteem equally on everything. Instead, we have domains  where we attach more of our worth. When we do well in those domains, we feel good about ourselves. When we fail, we feel worthless. The problem is that this turns "I feel good about myself" into "I feel good about myself if..."

It can then be really helpful to loosen those contingencies. And importantly, loosening those contingencies isn't giving up on goals. Instead, it's refusing to let outcomes, or others' judgments of those outcomes, be the dictators of your value as a person.

Drs. Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett explain another way that enoughness can be difficult with their three types of perfectionism: self-oriented (impossible standards for yourself), other-oriented (impossible standards for others, linked to loneliness), and socially-prescribed (believing others are demanding your perfection).  

All three of those forms of perfectionism likely come from the same root: the fundamental fear of not belonging. 

The good news is that these obstacles and fears are all things we can work with. We can reclaim our sense of enoughness through self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. We'll work with all of that throughout this Element of Enoughness. Listen to Episode 283 to start building your more solid ground of Enoughness that makes so much else possible.