Living with ‘Not Good Enough’: How We Work With This Feeling, Not Against It

Jul 20, 2025
3 min read

We meet so many people who carry the same quiet, painful belief:“I’m not good enough.”

It’s a thought that can feel like fact. Especially for those of us with ADHD, or anyone who’s lived for years trying to fit into a world that never felt built with us in mind. Sometimes this belief grows from missed deadlines, forgotten appointments, or feedback from others. Sometimes it’s rooted in childhood experiences where we were misunderstood, overlooked, or labelled “too much” or “not enough.” And sometimes… it’s just there, heavy and familiar, for no obvious reason at all.

Steve’s Perspective: Learning to Speak to Myself Differently

Over the years, I have learned that the “not good enough” feeling doesn’t just disappear because we want it to. But I’ve also learned that I don’t have to believe it or feed it. When it shows up, I try to slow down and listen to the way I’m speaking to myself. Am I using words I’d say to a friend? Or am I falling back into old habits of harsh criticism?

I remind myself how far I’ve come, the things I’ve survived, the ways I’ve grown, the people I’ve helped. These aren’t empty affirmations; they’re facts. And even when the feeling lingers, I’ve learned it’s okay to sit with it for a while. I don’t rush to fix it or push it away. I wait. And when the storm passes, I remind myself again: “I am enough, even on my hard days.”

This isn’t a magic solution. It’s a practice, one I return to over and over. And gradually, it’s helped me trust my worth more deeply.

Helen’s Perspective: Still Learning, Still Growing

I am not as far along this journey. I know the theory: I’ve read the books, had the conversations, and trained in this work. I understand where these feelings come from, but living it, in the day-to-day? That’s harder.

Some days I catch myself early. I notice the spiral starting and remind myself this is my ADHD talking, not reality. Other days, I get swept up in the old stories: “You should be better at this by now. You should know better. You should…” The ‘shoulds’ are endless.

What helps me is remembering that this is a process. Knowing how my brain works doesn’t erase the feelings, but it helps me hold them with a bit more compassion. I try to pause, name the feeling, and gently remind myself that progress isn’t linear. Some days, managing this feels easy. Other days, it’s just about staying kind to myself until the feeling passes.

Together: Compassion Over Perfection

The truth is, neither of us has “fixed” this completely. And we don’t believe anyone needs to. Feeling “not good enough” is part of being human. What matters is how we respond.

For us, it’s about:

Noticing the story when it shows up.
Speaking to ourselves the way we’d speak to someone we love.
Remembering how far we’ve come, even when it doesn’t feel like enough.
Allowing the feeling to exist without letting it define us.

This isn’t about positive thinking or pretending. It’s about practising compassion, over and over, until it becomes the louder voice.

Final Thought: You Are Not Alone

If you recognise this feeling — if you’re tired of carrying it alone — we want you to know there’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need fixing. You deserve support, understanding, and tools to help you walk this path with more ease and kindness toward yourself.

At The Bramble Path, this is at the heart of what we offer: Space to be human, to grow at your own pace and to learn how to live well with the brains we have.

Comments

Why it can be hard to open up in counselling

I’ve been having counselling for a few months now and it’s only recently that I feel like I’ve started to scratch beneath the surface. When I first started, I thought once I was there I’d just talk. I assumed the hard part would be making the appointment and showing up. After that, I imagined everything I’d been carrying around would somehow just come out. It didn’t work like that. I talked, obviously. I can talk for England when I need to. I can explain things really well. Analyse them. Pick them apart from every possible angle. For a long time I came away from sessions thinking they’d been useful because I’d said a lot.

But saying a lot and actually opening up aren’t the same thing. Since late last year there’s been a lot going on around my daughter. Not between us, but things she’s been dealing with that needed support and that naturally took up a huge amount of emotional energy and headspace. A lot of my counselling sessions became about that. Processing what was happening, trying to make sense of it, working through the worry that comes with supporting someone you love when they’re struggling. And that was exactly what I needed at the time.

Then somewhere amongst all of that I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, which was another thing to get my head around.I think when life is throwing enough immediate stuff at you, counselling becomes about surviving what’s right in front of you. You deal with the loudest thing first.That’s what I was doing. What I didn’t realise was that while I was talking about very real and difficult things, I was still staying in the safer places emotionally.I was talking about what was happening rather than what any of it was really stirring up underneath.

Only recently, now things have started to settle a bit, have I noticed myself touching on things that feel less rehearsed. Things I haven’t already thought through and packaged neatly before saying them out loud. It’s an odd feeling because I genuinely thought I was being open before. I think I had this idea that opening up was a choice. That if you wanted counselling to work, you just had to decide to be honest and get on with it.I don’t think that’s true anymore.I think sometimes your brain takes its own sweet time deciding it’s safe. Trust builds gradually, often without you noticing.

For me, I think part of that has been the relationship with my counsellor developing over time. And oddly, finding out she also lives with a similar chronic condition shifted something as well. Not because our experiences are the same, or because it suddenly made everything easier to say, but because there was something reassuring in knowing she understands what it’s like when your own body starts becoming something you have to factor into everything.There’s less explaining needed. I’m only really realising now that those months of what felt like surface conversation weren’t wasted. I used to think I was somehow doing counselling wrong because I wasn’t diving straight into the deep stuff.

Now I think those sessions were probably the reason I can start going there now. Sometimes it takes months of just turning up and talking before the real things begin to surface.I suspect that’s far more normal than people admit.

Until next time, take care.

Helen.