Not feeling ‘good enough’

TRIGGER warning: negative self-talk ahead.

“Okay, you’ve gotten 87% for your exam. It’s higher than your classmates, but not high enough. If you were actually smart, you wouldn’t have to study that much to only get this grade. You’re not good enough and you’ll never be.”

Whenever something went wrong or fell below my extremely high expectations, my harsh internal monologue would come on, telling me that I wasn’t good enough no matter what I did or how hard I tried.

While having the inner voice constantly pour out thoughts and comments designed to tear myself apart was exhausting, attempts to silence it made it even more draining.

As a student, I often found myself working much slower than my classmates, spending 80 minutes in English classes staring blankly at the lined pages of my exercise book, willing myself to come up with the “perfect” essay and fighting back tears which sprang from the stress of doing nothing while others scribbled away.

The red ink on my past year exam papers also bore evidence of my lack of effort. The fear of getting the answers wrong paralysed me from even trying, even though these exercises did not count towards my final grade.

I was constantly assailed by the imposter syndrome, the feeling that you are not as competent and capable as you are perceived to be. How could I be considered one of the better students of my class when I could barely finish in-class assignments without being on the verge of a breakdown?

I used to spend a considerable amount of time berating myself for not taking part in activities, clubs and sports events in secondary school because I felt that I was not good enough.

Chloe: I was constantly assailed by the imposter syndrome, the feeling that you are not as competent and capable as you are perceived to be.

I thought that being an overachieving perfectionist was a good thing, failing to realise how debilitating it could be, allowing myself to tumble down the dark pit of toxic perfectionism.

Over time, I began to understand that I had an obsessive desire to be perfect as a relief from painful feelings like rejection and harsh judgement from others.

In other words, I was extremely critical of everything that I did to avoid being not good enough because to me, failure was equivalent to worthlessness.

Breaking free from toxic perfectionism hasn’t been an easy journey, though I’ve progressed quite a bit from where I began.

Making small actionable goals, and promises to myself to achieve them, has helped.

I also tell myself that there’s nothing to lose and that the worst thing that could happen is having a missed opportunity which I will regret.

Since then, I’ve been trying to actively participate more in activities as a challenge to achieve personal growth since perfectionism and self-doubt only keep me in my comfort zone. Even so, I’ve occasionally regressed, falling back on the toxic mindset, but it helps when others remind me that a little attempt is better than nothing at all, and that progress is still progress regardless of how big or small it is. This leaves room for growth, creativity, potential and possibility.

One day when asked if I am proud of myself, I hope to be able to unreservedly and confidently answer, “Yes, I am!”

Chloe, 17, a student in Selangor, is a participant of the BRATs Young Journalist Programme run by The Star’s Newspaper-in-Education (Star-NiE) team.