Ep 9 - Why Good Enough is Great
[00:00:00] Ashley: Hello, and welcome back to Live at Your Edge. I'm Ashley, your host. And Happy New Year to you guys. I hope that you're feeling good in the new year. I know that this is supposed to be a big year energetically. A lot of energy reports are indicating that this is going to be a big year in a lot of ways.
[00:00:27] So it's feeling exciting. There's always that new, um, like bare ground kind of feeling in the very beginning of the new year, right? And in January when it's cold and everything's kind of dormant and everything's fresh and new.
[00:00:45] So, I hope that you're feeling good. I hope you had a good holiday and as far as what to talk about today, one thing that's been really present for me lately and that's coming to mind now as I'm thinking about this new energy of the new year is this idea of being good enough. This phrase just keeps coming up into my consciousness all the time lately in everything I'm doing? Like, can this just be good enough?
[00:01:22] When a lot of us hear that phrase at first, it has a kind of negative connotation. If something that we're working on. Like, If you put it in the context of say a project we're working on, if you were to say to someone, well, it's good enough. It sort of inherently suggests that it's not necessarily very good. But it's adequate and it will do. It will function for whatever it needs to function for, but it doesn't suggest that it's good. Good enough kind of means adequate.
[00:01:56] And I just want to kind of like, this keeps coming up for me as I'm working on this project. This podcast project. And I kind of want this reframe on the concept of good enough. Why is good enough bad? Why is it just adequate? Why is it not good?
[00:02:17] And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because I personally have throughout much of my life had a pattern that tends more towards perfectionism. And I think a lot of us do. I think it's partially culturally driven. But I also think it's... and you know what I'm going to say probably because of the way that Lauren and I always are talking on this podcast related to childhood wounding, but it really is true that a lot of our stuff comes down to that, and comes back to that.
[00:02:51] So for me anyways, perfectionism is kind of sourced in a lack of worthiness. And I got that phrasing actually from Brene Brown, whom I'm, if you've tuned into previous episodes, you heard me mentioned her once before. I am a big fan of her work and she describes perfectionism this way. At least that's my memory is that she describes that perfectionism is not self compassion, self love. It's sourced in a place where you don't feel worthy. And so you're trying to prove to yourself and the world that you are worthy by obsessing over delivering whatever you're creating or whatever you're doing for people in this like obsessively particular way.
[00:03:39] Like it has to be just so, or it won't be good enough to prove that you're worthy of love, belonging. Like all the things that Brene Brown mentions, right. She's like, we are all seeking love and belonging, and we're all acting out of our wounds in order to get that stuff. We feel like we have to earn it. And not that we're just intrinsically worthy of it.
[00:04:02] And that feeling of not intrinsically deserving it, but instead needing to earn it is coming from a deep childhood wound related to receiving love from those who took care of us and what we needed to do in order to quote unquote, earn it. And whether or not we felt unconditionally loved as children.
[00:04:29] So, I think it's pretty rare. Those of us that grew up, feeling true unconditional love from our parents. I think most of us are people that grew up with some sense that our lovability was conditional on things that we did.
[00:04:44] And so I've struggled with this perfectionist tendency for most of my life. And there's a deep, emotional level of emotional distress that comes from feeling concerned that you won't be able to deliver something unless it's just so.
[00:04:58] And so like in my own life, my professional life, especially. I've spent a lot of years teaching. And so when I was putting together lectures, I used to teach community college, for example. And when I used to design lectures. I spent huge amounts of time to make sure they were just so to make sure that they were where I wanted them to be, but it was impossible at that point in my life for me to let go of them when they were just going to be good, but they weren't going to be perfect in my view. I just couldn't.
[00:05:31] I had to get them to a certain place before I felt confident enough that I could go and give those lectures. Otherwise I just felt like I'd walk in there so lacking in confidence because it wasn't at a place where I felt really, really great about it.
[00:05:45] But it was because I couldn't just accept that. Like, Hey, this is, this is working. I've got it to a place where it's gonna work and I can work with that. I don't need it to be all perfectly, completely hashed out with every single detail figured out. That, wasn't where I was.
[00:06:03] And so of course the cost to that perfectionist tendency was that it took me a huge amount of time and effort to create those lectures to complete that work and the emotional output, the energetic output was massive. It was so exhausting and depleting. Inhabiting that pattern of perfectionism has a massive internal cost.
[00:06:33] But as I'm working on this project and as I'm going into this new year, where there's, this is a chance to kind of dream about what we want our future to look like. I personally love thinking about the new year that way in my more recent life. There's so much energy in the new year about setting new year's resolutions, which tends to be this like almost yardstick by which we can measure our worth. Like, did I meet this goal?
[00:06:59] But I've come to personally kind of shed that energy that our culture puts around new year's resolutions because it just doesn't ever feel sustainable to me. I have started liking something I've heard some of my teachers talk about, which is using the new years of time to kind of dream about what our hopes are, what we want our lives to feel like, what our dreams are, visioning our future.
[00:07:24] I like doing that instead of setting a goal because to me a goal, especially for stuff that's like in our personal life. There's nothing wrong with goals per se, but it can have this very, am I good enough, perserverent enough, hardworking enough to achieve this goal. And if I fail then, I feel like a failure, right? Like it just kind of almost sets us up for failure because the chances we're still going to be just as enthusiastic about that goal in August as we were in January, to me, that's just like, that's impossible or I'm never going to be as enthusiastic about a goal I set in January in August. Usually by the time February arrives, it's like, okay, but I want to move on to something else now I don't, I don't want to stick with that goal.
[00:08:08] So visioning. I love to use the new year as a time to vision. And dream about what I want life to look and feel like. And so that's where this idea is coming from around good enough. Having things just be good enough.
[00:08:25] And I don't just mean around our creative lives, our creative projects, our professional lives, although that's one big area, but also just in our family and interpersonal lives, like what is it that we can do that feels like it's good enough. Like in a good way, like, yes, this is good. It's good. And it's it's enough. And it doesn't need to be exactly just so, and it doesn't need to be perfect. Like what degree of input from me feels good to me without me over-giving for example.
[00:09:02] Like in my personal life this would be a good example. What amount of putting effort into my relationships feels good to me? Feels like I'm giving and loving and being generous of myself. But not over-giving and depleting me, right? Because for me at least that line is very fuzzy. It's often hard for me to establish where the boundary is between giving of self in a way that feels good and wholehearted and loving.
[00:09:35] And then where is that boundary that crosses into, well, now I'm still giving, but actually I'm giving from a place where I'm starting to feel depleted and I'm not resourced internally anymore. And I'm starting to walk into unsustainable territory where I'm going to get burnt out and exhausted.
[00:09:53] And I'm personally really working hard on navigating that boundary right now, because especially at this time of year in the winter, I tend to like to get really internal in the winter. And I don't feel like I have as much energy to put out towards my interpersonal relationships. I kind of like to hole up in my house a little bit and just be in my own internal space. It's not like that all year for me, but it really intensifies in the winter.
[00:10:20] And then I go through this sort of internal struggle where I'm wondering: am I neglecting my relationships? Like, Am I just avoiding things in my relationship? Or am I just taking care of myself? And where's the boundary between just doing what's good for me and giving what feels good and it's a gray area to me.
[00:10:41] And I am finding it so beneficial to really be paying close attention right now to where in that gray space between giving what feels good to me and what's giving too much to others. Where am I feeling the boundary right now?
[00:11:00] And the boundary, you know, the thing too, is that the boundary's always going to move. Like I was just alluding to at different times of year, it might feel like the boundary's in one place versus another place. Like you might be able to give more of self at some times than other times, and that depends on how resourced we are. And what's going on in our interior and exterior world.
[00:11:22] So the question to me comes back to: what feels good and what feels like enough and can I let good enough be great? My performance in my relationships and my job and my creative life in all these areas. Can I let what I'm giving feel like it's enough when it's just good and it's not perfect? And it's not the definition of adequate that I used to have. I guess that's what I'm talking about is redefining what we think is, is acceptable.
[00:11:59] So I hope this is making sense. I'm... because this is feeling present for me. I'm trusting that this is hopefully useful and helpful to others too. I tend to find that often a lot of us in the collective are going through similar things at similar times, even though we all have such individual and unique paths and experiences. There is this way that we also sort of move together through certain things in a collective way whether we're aware of it or not. Sometimes we're subconsciously connected into what's going on in the world more at large. And so we tend to shift through some of these things at the same time. So I'm trusting that this will serve and be useful.
[00:12:47] I think that's all I want to say about it right now. I'm just really sitting in that kind of experiment right now around, um, around what feels good to give and what doesn't feel good to give. So if it's useful to you, take some time to think about that for yourself and feel into that for yourself. Where are you with your relationships and your creative life? And your interpersonal life and all these different areas of your life.
[00:13:16] Where are you as far as what's feeling like it's restoring you, making you feel more internally resourced? And what feels like it's maybe drawing energy away from you and to what degree does energy being drawn away feel okay versus start to feel depleting. And like, where are you with all that stuff? Do you feel depleted and exhausted?
[00:13:37] If you do, are there some things you can look for in your life that would feel more restorative and repleting for you. That's something I struggle with. I've gotten a lot of support in that from my husband, because he's able to give me ideas for things that might replenish me that I wouldn't necessarily think of. It's not always easy and obvious to me to identify what things will be replenishing for me. I tend to embody more of a depleting state. Like I tend to self deplete. And so I'm not always aware of actually when I'm doing it and what kinds of things will restore me? I'm not as practiced at that restorative process. So feeling into that might be useful too.
[00:14:22] So I'm wishing you guys a wonderful start to the new year. And if you are going through stuff that's intense. Just know that you're not alone in that. This is a really intense point in time, point in our human evolution and point in history. And a lot of us are going through really, really intense healing and growth and change, like change in our life right now. Like You might be going through some big life change of some kind and just being aware that ah, like a lot of us out there are going through that and just having as much gentleness with that as you can, cause it really is hard. These times can be hard, but I hope that you have some things you're excited about this year coming up and things that you're dreaming about for this year.
[00:15:10] Thank you so much for tuning in. I do have a new ask for you this time. So if you're someone that's been listening to the show, you've listened to a few episodes and you enjoy the show, leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. That would be such a big support to us. I'm going to tell you exactly how to do that. So if you are an iPhone user and so you have access to Apple Podcasts, the way that you would leave a review is when you go to the podcast page. So the page for this podcast. You just scroll down towards the bottom of the page until you see those stars. And when you do, you would click a star rating. And then just below that, you're going to see a place that says, write a review. After you click the star rating, you're just going to click, write a review and it'll let you leave a review.
[00:15:57] If you are an Android user, one way that you could support us is by leaving us a rating on Spotify. Spotify just added last year a feature that allows you to rate podcasts. All you would need to do is, you do need to listen to at least one episode of the show on the app before to let you leave a rating. But once you've done that, you'll see on the podcast page, just below the podcast description, there'll be a little button that says ratings. And if you click that button, it'll let you leave us a rating.
[00:16:32] Doing that is so supportive if that's something that you want to do. It makes a big difference to us because it really helps our podcast to become easier to find by new potential listeners. So that would be a huge support to us.
[00:16:47] Thank you so much for tuning in. We're so thrilled to have you here with us, and we're excited to bring you some new content this year. So thanks so much for being here today and we'll see you on the next episode.
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