How to be Enough ! Self acceptance for Self critics and Perfectionists (TLDR/Spark’s Notes inspired by Ellen Hendrickson & book of same name)
Are you exhausted from constantly trying to be perfect?
From the outside, perfectionism might look like a relentless drive for excellence, which can be seen as a good thing, but underneath, it’s really about never feeling good enough, which can actually stop you from achieving your goals through powerful insights from psychology and practical strategies you can use today. My intention for today’s SoundByte is to show you how you can begin to transform your harsh inner critic into a kinder guide (Let’s face it. Would you rather listen to your Negative Nelly or your supportive cheerleader?)
You’ll learn why self compassion leads to better results than self criticism, how to break free from the comparison trap, and why authenticity matters more than appearing perfect. Whether you’re struggling with procrastination, people pleasing or the constant pressure to achieve more, you’ll find a path forward that doesn’t require abandoning your high standards just your impossible ones. The perfectionist paradox. If you think being a perfectionist is about striving for perfection, you’re not alone. So it might surprise you to know that perfectionism is really about never feeling good enough. At its core, perfectionism starts with conscientiousness, that wonderful trait that helps you care deeply about doing things well somewhere along the way, this healthy care tips so current to harsh self judgment, you become your own worst critic, focusing relentlessly on flaws while dismissing successes.
If and when you meet your sky high standards, you simply raise them higher. When you fall short, you take it as proof of your inadequacy. Your inner critic shows up in many ways, beating you up with harsh words and impossible demands. It whispers that others have it worse. So your struggles don’t matter. It compares you constantly to others, always finding you lacking. It demands impossible standards, insisting you should be farther ahead in life, career or relationships. So why do you keep listening to this harsh inner voice?
Often you’re trying to protect yourself by criticizing yourself first. You believe you can avoid others judgment by keeping your expectations impulsively high. You hope to drive self improvement by putting yourself down. You attempt to stay humble and keep your ego in check. Sometimes you even criticize yourself to feel more in control. If something’s your fault, at least you could fix it. Occasionally, you might even voice self criticism, hoping others will reassure you that you’re doing fine. This is certainly true for Elena, a talented software developer who stays late at her office every night fixing imaginary flaws in her code. She believes each small error proves she interlocks. But her perfectionism isn’t protecting her. It’s keeping her from enjoying her successes and connecting with her teammates. The good news is that through seven powerful mindset shifts, you can transform this harsh inner voice into a far kinder one. I hope to inspire you to begin replacing criticism with compassion, rigid rules with flexibility and endless striving with genuine contentment. As you do, you’ll discover how to let go of mistakes instead of dwelling on them. You’ll move from procrastination to meaningful productivity, from draining comparison to true contentment and from rigid control to authentic self expression.
This journey isn’t about abandoning your high standards or stopping the hard work that makes you who you are. Instead, it’s about making room for rest, joy and genuine connection with others. It’s about recognizing that beneath all your striving lies a deeper wish to feel safe, accepted and worthy exactly as you are. In the chapters ahead, we’ll explore each mindset shift through examples and practical strategies, you’ll discover that being enough isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being authentically, imperfectly, wonderfully yourself, calming the inner and outer critic. Self criticism might seem like a path to self improvement, but it actually diminishes us in powerful ways. When perfectionism becomes your default setting, it grinds your motivation to a halt, increases stress, and paradoxically, actually lowers the quality of your work. Even worse, it creates a barrier between you and others, making genuine connection harder to achieve. The good news is that you can replace harsh self criticism with something far more powerful, self compassion. This means treating yourself with the same warmth and understanding you’d offer a friend who’s struggling. It means recognizing that making mistakes and feeling inadequate sometimes is simply part of being human, something that connects you to everyone else on the planet.
Self Compassion isn’t just about feelings. It’s about actions. It might mean giving yourself permission to rest without guilt, or accepting that you can’t possibly do everything on your impossible to do list. It could be as simple as savoring your morning coffee without rushing, or taking time to garden exercise gently or do anything else that brings you joy.
And perfectionism doesn’t just turn inward, it often flows toward others, especially those closest to us. You might find yourself holding your partner, children or colleagues to impossible standards, focusing on their flaws, while easily forgiving strangers for the same mistakes. This tendency to criticize those closest to us creates an internal tug of war. We want the best for them, but our criticism pushes them away. The path forward isn’t about completely eliminating your high standards. Instead, it’s about bringing awareness to these patterns and choosing a different response. When you notice yourself slipping into harsh criticism, whether toward yourself or others, you can pause and choose compassion. Instead, this first mindset shift from criticism to kindness lays the foundation for all the others to follow by learning to treat yourself and others with genuine compassion, you create space for growth, connection and true self acceptance. The perfectionist in you might resist this change at first, but with practice, you’ll discover that kindness is actually the surest path to the growth and connection you’ve been seeking all along. From rules to values, perfectionism often comes with an internalized rule book of rigid guidelines about who you are and what you must do, these rules might often sound something like I have to or I must, and especially I should. They feel like commands from a strict authority figure, leaving little room for flexibility or choice. But there’s another way to guide your choices through values, unlike rules, values are freely chosen directions that give your life meaning. They’re not about what you must do, but about what matters most to you. Values can include things like creativity, connection with others, learning, helping people, or any number of meaningful pursuits to discover your own values. Try this simple exercise, think about the moments in your life when you felt most alive and purposeful. Maybe it was helping a friend through a tough time, or losing yourself in a creative project, or teaching someone a new skill. These moments point toward what truly matters to you. Now notice when your perfectionism turns these values into rigid rules. If you value generosity, perfectionism might turn that into, I must always say yes when someone asks for help. If you value excellence, perfectionism might insist I can’t ever make a mistake. The key difference values feel like chosen directions, while rules feel like forced marches. It is also important to ensure that your worth isn’t based on how perfectly you follow rules or how much you achieve.
When you base your self worth on performance, whether that’s work achievements following a diet perfectly or appearing totally normal at social events, you set yourself up for inevitable crashes when you can’t maintain it, instead of letting predetermined rules dictate your choices, stay present in the moment and let your values guide you. This doesn’t mean you abandon high standards or stop caring about doing things well. It means choosing your direction freely based on what matters most to you. When you catch yourself thinking, I have to in any situation, try shifting your thinking to what you might choose to do based on what you value most. This simple change can transform obligation into meaningful action. This shift from rules to values creates space for both excellence and self compassion. It allows you to pursue what matters while accepting that Being human means sometimes falling short. Most importantly, it helps you move from performing for acceptance to living authentically connected to both your true self and others. From paralysis to progress, perfectionism creates a tricky relationship with both mistakes and productivity. When every mistake feels catastrophic and every task must be done perfectly, you might find yourself stuck in a cycle of either avoiding tasks entirely or obsessing over every tiny aspect, hurling yourself into unimportant tasks like cleaning the floors or reorganizing your desktop, instead of tackling the pile of unopened bills in the corner or writing that All important quarterly report.
The path forward starts with understanding that procrastination isn’t about laziness. It’s about emotions. When a task makes you feel anxious, overwhelmed or inadequate, putting it off provides immediate emotional relief, but this creates a cycle. The more you procrastinate, the worse you feel about yourself, and the harder it becomes to start breaking this cycle. Like so many other things, it begins with self-compassion. Next, break down overwhelming tasks into steps so small they feel almost ridiculous.(the original author suggests) Instead of listing, * write report* on the to do list, your first step might instead be *open laptop* or *write one sentence*. Your perfectionist brain will want to resist this approach because it prefers all or nothing thinking but starting with tiny steps bypasses the emotional resistance that triggers procrastination.
Another powerful technique involves connecting with your future self. Take a moment to vividly imagine yourself at the end of the day or week, notice how that future version of you might feel if you take one small step now this exercise creates empathy with your future self and makes it harder to pass today’s tasks on to them.
Productivity isn’t about being perfect, it’s about making progress, and even mistakes can be a part of that progress. Each small step forward counts, even if it’s imperfect. By combining self compassion with practical strategies like tiny steps and future self visualization, you can break free from perfectionist paralysis and start moving forward with both purpose and peace.
*** Stop comparing and be you*** Social comparison and emotional control often go hand in hand with perfectionism. Both habits promise to keep you safe, but ultimately leave you feeling disconnected from yourself and others. Comparison comes in two forms. Sometimes you look down on others to feel better about yourself, leading to a fleeting sense of superiority. Other times you look up at others and feel inadequate, focusing on everything you lack. Both directions leave you stuck in an endless cycle of measuring and judging, missing the richness of genuine connection. Breaking Free starts with getting curious when you notice yourself comparing pause to gather more information. That colleague with the perfect presentation style, they might have spent years in Toastmasters, that friend who seems to parent effortlessly, they might be struggling in ways you can’t see. The more you know about others full stories, the harder it becomes to make shallow comparisons.
Similarly, emotional control can keep you from experiencing life fully. You might believe you should always be appropriate in control or strong in public. You might think negative emotions need a clear, logical cause, or that positive emotions mean you’re being self indulgent. Some people go so far as to exclude some emotions entirely, like anger or sadness. But trying to perfect your emotions is like trying to control the weather, impossible and exhausting. If you find yourself restricted in your emotional expression by the need to be appropriate, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation.
Try this simple exercise to practice more emotional authenticity in your next casual conversation, let your facial expressions match your genuine reactions, even just 20% more than usual. Notice how this small shift affects your sense of connection and presence in the moment. And so, this final mindset shift invites you to move beyond both comparison and control of genuine self expression. It doesn’t mean sharing every feeling or abandoning all filters. Instead, it means allowing yourself to be human, sometimes messy, sometimes joyful, always real when you stop performing perfection and start living authentically, you create space for genuine connection with others who are on the same journey.
In this SoundByte Spark’s Notes Summary of How to be Enough, (by E. Hendrickson), you’ve learned that in order to overcome perfectionism, it’s important to understand it isn’t about striving for excellence. It’s about never feeling good enough replace harsh self criticism with self compassion, which research shows actually improves performance while reducing stress and anxiety instead of following rigid internal rules, identify your core values and let them guide your choices with flexibility in the moment, break the cycle of procrastination by taking tiny steps and connecting with your future self. Finally, practice emotional authenticity instead of constant comparison, allowing yourself to be fully human rather than perfect.
Research shows that forgiving yourself for past procrastination actually helps you procrastinate less in the future. Instead of beating yourself up about avoiding tasks, try treating yourself with the same understanding you’d offer a friend!
Keep Growing friends! The world needs more of who you REALLY are! A better you is a better world! It’s time to become who you were born to be!
With Love & Bright Blessings,
Jewal @ WildlyAbundantWoman – Holistic Lifestyle Medicine & MindBody Practitioner, Mindfulness for Stress Reduction, ADHD Support for Performance & Wellbeing and Business Coach to LightWorkers on Purpose