After coaching many people over many years, I notice certain core issues that most clients face, life themes they are in the process of mastering. The most common issue is the feeling, “I am not enough.” This belief spills into other sectors of life, such as, “I do not have enough” or “I do not do enough.” While it appears that various different elements of our life are not enough, they can all be traced back to the belief, “I am not enough.”
We were all born knowing we are enough. Little children do not have self-esteem issues. They are bold, unapologetic, ask for what they want, and bear no need to prove themselves. Then parents, elder siblings, teachers, clergy, or other authority figures teach them all they have to do to become worthy. They harp on the child’s faults rather than celebrating the child’s strengths. Then feelings of not-enoughness begin to creep into the child’s mind, and eventually displace the inner confidence they were born with.
A friend of mine sent her son to the first day of kindergarten, and he came home crying. “What happened?” she asked. “The teacher passed out a coloring page of a clown,” he explained. “I drew a green nose on the clown. When the teacher saw it, she scolded me, ‘Everyone knows that a clown’s nose is red.’”
Such early invalidation can develop into a lifetime pattern of trying to prove yourself. My client Dave is a very successful professor at a prestigious university. He has gathered massive accolades, written books, lectures to the profession, and sits on respected committees. Dave is beyond the age of retirement, but he feels he needs to keep working, although he doesn’t much enjoy it. He believes he still needs to do more to prove himself. I told him, “Dave, if you never did anything else in your life, all the amazing things you have done would be enough.” Now Dave is starting to ease up on his self-demands, and enjoy his life rather than trying to earn more stars.
Take a moment now to consider what you do that proceeds from a sense of enoughness, and what you do that proceeds from not-enoughness. You will probably notice that when you proceed from not-enoughness, you never end up with enoughness. An empty self-image is a bottomless black hole you will never fill by doing more.
When, on the other hand, your proceed from knowing you are enough, everything you do from that mindset works. Because you are already enough, you don’t need to do anything to make you more enough.
My client Susan suffered from a lack of self-worth. After coaching, she fashioned herself a bracelet with the letters WWWSD—standing for, “What Would a Worthy Susan Do?” When Susan has a choice to make, she looks at the bracelet, takes a moment to consult her inner guidance, and then acts from her worthy self. Susan reports that her lack of self-worth has been crumbling quickly, giving way to newfound confidence and success.
You might like to make yourself a similar bracelet, or post the letters on your phone or computer desktop, on the wall over your desk, or on your refrigerator. When you consult your worthy self regularly, that becomes your dominant energy and results.
While I have helped clients formulate many affirmations, they boil down to the three powerful truths below. Please feel free to use them for yourself:
I have enough.
I do enough.
