Feeling "not good enough?" This question will change your life...

Ever look around and feel like you’re not good enough?

• Not as good at dance as this person?

• Not as good a cook as that person?

• Not as good of a spouse/partner as this other person?

This feeling starts at way too young of an age—and if we’re not careful, it can plague us for decades.

Earlier this week, one of my kids was stuck in this feeling.

• “I’m not good at dance…”

• “ I haven’t won any competitions…”

• “This friend is better than me at…”

There was a lot of negative self talk.

I listened and started getting excited. I feel like I’ve spent the last 20 years preparing for this exact moment.

I said - “thats really hard. It sucks to feel like everyone is better at everything and that you aren’t good enough. I know. I’ve felt that way too.

Now, tell me the rest of the story…”

She was so confused.

I said, “you just told me part of a story, so I just want to make sure I get to hear the whole story…”

She was still confused so I prompted her a bit.

Well, what practice did you have today?

“Joust”

(she’s the lead in the elementary school musical 😬)

Amazing how we can convince ourselves that we aren’t enough when there are tangible data points in front of us to prove otherwise.

Slowly, she started telling me other parts of her story right now and the dark cloud hanging over her started to rise.

What changed about her situation?

Nothing.

She still may not be as good of a dancer as this other friend and she still hasn’t won any competitions - all of those data points might be true but they only represent one part of the story.

If we’re going to invest so much energy and effort into telling part of a story then we have to be willing to tell the other part of the story with the same degree of energy.

Now, let’s say she decides she really does want to win this competition or be as good as this other friend who dances. We asked this question again and got a different answer.

I said, so this friend is a really great dancer and can do the splits and all these fun tricks—what part of her story are you not telling?

This time she knew where I was going because we’ve had plenty of these talks before. She said, “she practices really hard.”

For sure. This friend probably does practice really hard and might even take a class focused entirely on specific tricks.

You can’t only look at the final product and want it. If you want the same “end” as someone else’s story, you’re likely going to need to also have some similarities in the middle of the story. You need to train. You need to take classes. You might even need to do those things more if you had less natural talent to at the beginning.

This was easily one of my favorite conversations I’ve had with this specific child.

THIS is the power of questions. I didn’t need to tell her to do anything or fix something or be grateful or stop complaining. I asked a question and let her wrestle with the answers.

This was also such a great example of the question I love asking each morning, “who needs you today?” I’m glad I was aware and prepared to be there for who needed me on that day.

So, if you’re feeling like you’re “not enough” for whatever reason, ask yourself, “what part of the story aren’t you telling” and then go tell it 🙌🏼

Keep Asking,

Kyle