6 Things to Remember When You Feel You Are Not Good Enough
Life is full of ups and downs, for all of us. It’s a fact of life that’s inescapable but, at its core, it all comes down to a matter of perspective. The way we view ourselves and our lives have such a dramatic impact on our lives, even if we don’t originally realise it.
Some of the main attributes of our thoughts and emotions, particularly confidence and happiness, are so easy to forget or misplace in our line of focus but without them, we can easier end up feeling that we’re not good enough.
It’s so common to feel out of place and as though we’re not good enough, but we don’t have to live our lives in this way. Life can change so quickly, in both positive and negative ways, whether it’s regarding our health, happiness, careers or even our relationships.
With all this in mind, it goes without saying that keeping ourselves in a positive mind frame in both the good and the bad times, is essential. To many of us, this is easier said than done. To help you get started, here’s a comprehensive list of things to remember when you’re feeling low to help you bring yourself back to your positive and beaming self.
1. Life Is All About Moving Forward
It can be so easy to add pressures to your mind about everything you do in life. Whether you’re working out, trying to move forward and ace your career or even building relationships with the people in your life, it’s easy to always aim for perfection.
This is a great way to live since aiming for perfection is the only way to achieve it, but it’s important to remember that it’s not the be all and end all. Life is an imperfect cocktail of situations, but the most important thing to remember is moving forward.
Most of us live extremely busy lives where we’re handling a lot of tasks and juggling a lot of situations simultaneously, and it can be so easy to get caught up trying to perfect the task at hand. However, not everything can be perfect, and the pressure we give ourselves can sometimes end up holding us back and leaving us feeling like we’re not good enough.
I remember when I was once in a nightclub and my friend ended up hooking up with a reasonably attractive girl. They spent the night together and ended up back at her place. They got on really well and he hadn’t been in a relationship for some time. You know what it’s like when your mind rushes through the idea of spending the rest of your life with someone?
Yeah, well, that happened.
So, he took her number and went on his way. He messaged her the next day and it turns out they had absolutely nothing in common. It seemed like she had so much more going for her, so my friend tried to big himself up, as you do. However, it wasn’t meant to be, and it was so important to not just get caught up it. Just accept that it happened and move forward!
2. Living in the Present Moment
There’s only one sense of time that’s written in stone, and that’s the past. This present moment and the future is left to be written, and you’re the author. In fact, even though the past is set in stone, our perception of it can change at our own will.
It’s easy to feel down and depressed about something that has happened in the past, but that’s only our current perception, and it’s the result of our minds focusing on the negative mindset. However, by changing our perspective to focus on the positive mindset can be extremely beneficial.
There’s a very well-known saying that states that every situation has a good and bad outcome. Even if you’ve failed at something or something has gone the way you intended, take the positives of the situation and learn from what happened. Brush off the dust and move forward positively.
Shannon Brown, a lifestyle writer, shares her experiences, “Being present is one of the hardest things you can do. Consider how many times a day you think that you’re running late, thinking about what you or somebody else said, what you’re having for dinner later that day, what work you’ve got to get finished and what plans you’ve got for the weekend. These are all thoughts for the future or past. Through writing, meditation and by reminding yourself, you can ensure that you become present. The best piece of advice I can give is to meditate every day, write every day and to set up reminders, maybe on your phone, to remind yourself to be present throughout the day.”
3. Learning Something New Every Day Keeps Your Mind Active
The human mind is a sponge for information, and it craves to be exercised, just like the rest of the body. Consider when you’ve sat and read a book, watched a documentary or just set out to learn something new, how did you mind feel afterwards?
To make this easier to consider, how well did your body feel the last time you exercised? Whether you’ve done yoga in the morning, went to the gym after work or went for a run, you will have felt so much more energised, in tune with your body and happier. This is the feeling that your mind craves.
By learning something new every day, you can enhance your mind, actively grow your brain and help to wash away any negative thoughts that are currently in your mind. You can use writing tools, to provide you with a list of facts, helping you to start small by learning something new daily.
One of the funniest things one of my best mates told me to stay positive was to learn a new way to pick up a girl every day. I’m talking about chat-up lines and those sentences that girls all hot under the collar. He said ‘I’ll learn them now, and when the time comes to using them, I’ll have more than enough to keep it going all night.’
Despite finding this concept absolutely hilarious, it actually worked, and when you search online for tips you can use, you’ll be shocked at what some people have actually tried.
Using what he learned, he tried to rekindle an old one-night stand. After the small talk of saying how we are and what we’re up to these days, he found the ideal time to lay down the line;
‘Yeah today’s going okay, you’ve been running through my mind all day, so haven’t got any work done… which I should probably do!’
Didn’t reply for a few hours, checked the phone after actually working for a few hours and what do you know, three messages and a handful of Snapchat!
It turns out my mate knows his stuff! Or you could always stick to learning something educational, depends on how you feel.
4. Writing Down Your Thoughts & Feelings Helps
At any given moment, it can feel like 101 thoughts and emotions are running through our minds, and it can feel completely overwhelming at times, leading us to feel down and depressed about our current well-being and situation in life.
If we let our minds become flooded with emotions and feelings, it can take a terrible toll on our perspective on life and ourselves. The best way to overcome this is venting and organising these thoughts and feelings in the form of writing.
The easiest way to do this is by keeping a journal, diary, jotting down notes or even writing poems. It’s a good idea to experiment with what methods work for you and what you find to be the best release of these emotions. Getting your feelings down on paper is a great way to visualise what you’re feeling down about in life, whatever it may be, getting out of your head.
Effectively, you’ll be clearing your mind of negative thoughts, only leaving room for the positive ones. The more you write, the better you’ll be able to convey your thoughts and feelings. You can even use online resources (such as Via Writing and State of Writing to improve your writing skills actively. The better you write, the more positive your mind will be.
Now, writing a diary might not seem like the most exciting way to spend your evening, especially when images of your mates coming over and discovering it can literally make you shiver in fear, but it’s so worth doing.
A few months back, I was involved in a car accident where an individual ran in front of my car on a dual-carriage motorway. It turns out he was going through some emotional dramas at home, went for a night out, got drunk and yeah, had had basically enough.
I just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time but as you can imagine, the shock still haunts me to this a day. Now, I know that this is a bit of an extreme example that doesn’t happen to everyone, but I can tell you from personal experience that counselling sucks, especially group therapy sessions. It might work for some, not for me.
And the first two months after were rough, especially watching films like Transformers or Transporter when many of the scenes rejog your memory. I read about the benefits of writing which I gave it a shot, and it was so beneficial. Getting your thoughts and feeling down on paper is a huge release and it can do wonders for your well-being.
It’s safe to say that I didn’t go back to counselling. Of course, everybody, including you, is going to have different problems and you’re going to deal with them in your own way. If I can give any advice, it’s to give it a go, try it for a week and then see how you feel. I guarantee you’ll feel so much better about life.
5. Writing Every Day Clears Away the Negative Thoughts
Hand in hand with the consideration above, it’s important to write every day. At first, it may seem very difficult to find the time but even if you start with ten minutes a day, this a great start which you can then start to build from as you get better and better. You’ll also feel a lot more motivated to write every day once you start feeling the benefits of it, which will happen instantly after the first time.
As a starting point, try to aim for 1,000 words a day. This is a good length to write about since you’ll have more than enough space to convey how you feel, whether you’re writing about how you feel, how your day has been or what’s playing on your mind.
Try to write about your negative thoughts primarily as to get them out of your head but try to include some positive things, such as what you’re grateful for or what the best part of your day was so you could appreciate the little things in life. You can track your word count using tools such as Easy Word Count.
6. Everyone Makes Mistakes
As mentioned above, mistakes are inevitable, and there’s no way you can avoid them. Everybody makes them from time to time, no matter how big or small they are. When we make mistakes, it’s important to remember not to beat yourself up over it but to instead learn and grow from them.
Letting the consequences of our mistakes run riot in our minds is sure only to make us feel down and low about how we perceive ourselves. Take the mistake you made, learn what to do next time the situation happens and move forward.
Well, we’re not going to go into all the mistakes that I’ve made throughout my life. Let’s be honest, who wants to do that?
I think we’ve all been there when we’ve sent a text to our moms rather than girlfriends, or trusted auto-correct with our hearts when sending a key message during the most heated of conversations (whichever kind of heated that may be) and it’s resulted in some devastating results.
Never going to let that happen again!
Conclusion
In short, life is no easy ride, no matter who are you. As much as we like to think that we’re indestructible when things get tough, life can get on top of us. However, with the right mindset, you can change your perspective to think positively about everything that happens, remembering the solid fact that you are good enough.
