Put Down the Hammer

Lately a lot of people I know (including myself) have been going through periods of self-doubt and self-hatred.    In fact, two wonderful bloggers, Danielle LaPorte at White Hot Truth and Aidan Donnelley Rowley at Ivy League Insecurities have written about their own struggle with self hatred and not feeling good enough.  It was fascinating to realize that these 2 women who are accomplished, successful and living the dream struggle with moments of 'I am not good enough'.  What I find most interesting about self-doubt and 'feeling not good enough' is that it seems to happen to all of us--some of us more than others but at some point that dark cloud of self doubt creeps in and tell us that we just aren't enough.

It is my belief and I have written about it here frequently, that you are enough, period.  However, I have found that even though I believe that to be true, powers greater than me are out to subterfuge that belief.  As I have shared before, I still struggle with feelings of judgement against myself.

Somewhere in my psyche is the irrational belief that the more I hammer myself the more I will be motivated or the more I will succeed.  I admit at times I believe I am successful  because I am modest/humble and constantly remind myself how small I am.  Growing up many of us, especially women were given the message to stay humble, stay modest, don't brag etc.  And in our brains we got that confused with beat yourself up, keep yourself down.  The two are not linked in any way.  In no way does hammering myself on how much I don't live up unreal expectations match with keeping myself humble.  I can be a successful person, share my gifts with the world, be happy AND be humble and modest.  It is like I believe feeling not good enough is the price I have to pay for happiness or success. I even commented on Aidan's blog that maybe feeling not good enough is the yang to the ying of succeeding.

But today I am calling bullshit on that belief (pardon the harsh language but I think it is warranted). My beliefs of feeling not good enough and not worthy are not serving me in any way.  Somewhere I justified these feelings by saying they are all part of life's balance but in reality these beliefs do nothing but hurt me.  These beliefs don't serve us in any way, the don't make us better human beings, they don't make us happier and they don't allow us to give back to the world.

Today I am shedding light on my 'I am not good enough beliefs' I am going bring them out in the open and build some awareness around them.  I am going to put down the hammer and I challenge you to do the same.

The belief that these thoughts are serving us, keeping us modest, humble and nice is incorrect and the less we foster these thoughts the happier we will become.