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Will I ever be good enough?

Social media, comparison and perfectionism make us insecure. Discover how to let go of the feeling of not being good enough and gain more self-confidence. A personal reflection.

Why is there no pill against the feeling that you are not good enough?

Why is there no pill like Ozempic that doesn’t dampen our cravings and addictions, but that nagging feeling of I’m not enough?

I see it all around me. And I recognize it in myself too. Many people walk around from an early age with the idea that they are not beautiful, that they are overweight, that they are not good enough. Or that they are already old while they are barely over thirty. And this whilst they are beautiful and young and the whole world is open to them.

Women and their self-esteem

In Flair I read that a large percentage of women think they should lose weight. Or that a double chin or overhanging eyelid needs to be corrected. As if something always has to be solved before you can be satisfied with who you are.

That means: walking around with a heavy feeling all your life. And only much later, often only after the age of 60, that voice seems to soften and ebb away. As if you are finally free from that constant comparison and improvement.

Sometimes I wonder: what if we could let go of that feeling much earlier instead of at the end of our lives? At the moment when we are young and beautiful, and strong enough to take on the world. And that we realize just that, and can enjoy it.

And suddenly that pressure falls away

For me, part of that liberation started when I stopped working. Suddenly, I no longer had to deal with people who evaluate, criticize or tear down my work.

When I was still working, I often came home stressed in the evening, with a head full of voices. Like at that seminar that I had organized perfectly, and yet you only heard: “You passed with distinction, but without congratulations from the jury.” Without recognition. One sharp (probably intented as such) sentence that undermines your whole day, commitment and mood.

Or when I was still a student and was told during my final defense that my work could not possibly be my own work, it felt extremely unfair. Now I would immediately seriously defend myself, but at the time my lack of self-confidence prevented me from counteracting the ‘tribunal’ of teachers

Even at a later age (25 years and 50 years after date), such ugly voices can still reverberate. But you can learn to look at them more mildly. By stopping constantly putting yourself down and measuring yourself against others.

In some cases I can understand it. You have men who constantly put women down. In order to boost their self-esteem. Or parents who push their children to be the best at everything, while they have no eye for what that does to a child’s self-image.

Many women do it to themselves, by the way. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. All of them show the most beautiful photos, perfect faces, happy relationships, successful careers. You don’t see any quarrels, no sadness, no days when nothing works out. Only the result, never the price paid for it.

How your self-esteem is controlled

The algorithm learns what touches you, and what makes you click. If you linger on luxury houses or perfect bodies, it shows more and more of the same. This slowly creates an echo of comparison, in which the level of success is higher and higher.

Because of that constant exposure you shift your perception of normal. Beautiful (photoshopped) people, perfect relationships, beautiful houses. It doesn’t feel special anymore, it seems to be the norm. And while your expectations rise, your self-confidence decreases, because you can’t keep up with it yourself.