Yes, you are NOT good enough, BUT..

Those of you who have studied Psychology, or coached/counseled fellow humans, you may have seen a pattern that shows up in every problem and topic. The pattern is, ALL problems, I mean ALL, boil down to “Identity” issues. All problems ultimately take a shape of “I am…….” and most common one “I am — not good enough.”. Our worth is the biggest battle we fight with the world outside and with ourselves. Unfortunately more often than not, we lose.

Now what if I told you, you have been fighting the wrong battle and therefore losing. Interesting?

So here the thing, “I am not good enough” is not a complete sentence. FINISH THE SENTENCE.

Here is how to finish it: “I am not good enough AT ……….. YET.”

Let’s break it down further, in the spirit of my engineering self.

The Real Issue:

The real issue is, that most feedback, assessments and self-introspection gets conflated on following 2 dimensions:

1. Whole Identity (YOU are bad!)
2. Time (you were ALWAYS bad and will always be bad)

So in terms of graph, if the Graph 1 below shows the X-Axis as time and Y-Axis as parts of our identity, things we define ourselves with. For example, the roles we play, skills we have, desires we have, people we love etc.

Graph 2 below shows how “I am not good enough.” looks like when plotted. Its pretty grim and depressing and not actionable.

The Real Fix:

When we finish the sentence:

“I am not good enough AT __xyz____ YET”

AT: address the first dimension issue, where it scopes it down to a skill versus your whole identity and existence.

YET: addresses the second dimension issue, where it puts in a possibility that in future you can be good enough if you do some work towards it.

Graph 3 below show how “I am not good enough at xyz yet.” looks like when plotted. This is very specific and there is hope and possibility. You can substitute xyz with anything you identify with. E.g. I am not good enough at parenting yet or I am not enough at running a business yet, or I am not good enough at skiing yet or I am not good enough at being kind yet.

This is such a happier, workable, possible situation and gives you motivation to go work on that thing, that you are not good enough at yet. That’s what growth mindset is all about. [Read Carol Dweck’s work on it or her Ted talk, where she talks about how a teacher instead of giving a ‘F’ in exams to students, gave a grade of ‘Not yet’.]

Why do we do think this way?

Exaggeration and all or nothing thinking is a habit of mind, almost human thinking flaws we are all born with. [Read about cognitive distortions work by Dr. Aaron Beck]. So we have to consciously fight that habit to redefine the problem statement. In other words, the answer lies in the redefining the question.

#Bonus material (since you read all the way till here :)).

Other most common cognitive distortions are:

(Source: Burns, David D., MD. 1989. The Feeling Good Handbook. New York: William Morrow and Company)

• All or Nothing Thinking
• Overgeneralizing
• Mental Filter
• Disqualifying the Positive
• Jumping to Conclusions: Mind Reading/Fortune Telling
• Magnification (Catastrophizing) and Minimization
• Emotional Reasoning
• Should/Must Statements
• Labelling
• Personalization

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