No-fuss anxiety tips #5

You ARE good enough

Welcome to the fifth blog in this series on anxiety, made up of 20-short articles with simple tips and techniques for managing anxiety. These strategies are designed to give you a sense of agency when it comes to dealing with anxiety. Each tip draws upon therapeutic thinking from a range of psychological and psychotherapy theories.  My hope is that, rather than feel like anxiety is in charge, you’ll have some tried and tested ways to tackle anxiety.  

What these tips won’t do is explore the origins and purpose of anxiety for you – this type of deeper exploration is what therapy offers.  That said, having strategies for managing anxiety is a great place to start.  Each article is designed to be quick read, no-fuss. So, let’s get into technique number five: remember you ARE good enough.      

Anxiety can stem from a fear of being “not good enough”.  Of course, different people will have different answers to the question it means to be “good enough”? Taking time to reflect on what “good enough” means for you can be a helpful way to challenge your own automatic thinking and assumptions which can be a factor in maintaining anxiety.

Carl Rogers, the founder of Person-Centered Therapy noted that people make value judgements about themselves.  Rogers called this the ‘locus of evaluation’.  Our locus of evaluation can be either internal or external.

An internal locus of evaluation is where we make value judgements based on what we think and believe for ourselves. We trust our own instincts. If we sense we are good enough, then we are good enough!   

An external locus of evaluation is where the judgements we make about ourselves are based on the expectations of significant people in our lives. Without always realising it, we can absorb their expectations as if they are our own. For example, if an important role model in your life – for example, your Mother, showered you with affection when you did well at school, you may begin to judge yourself as unworthy of love when you slip up, or fail to pass a test. Without realising it, the expectation of the other becomes your own expectation for yourself.    

Rogers believed that cultivating a more internal evaluation was an important step of growth as a human being. Feeling more at ease with your own evaluation of your worth and importance can be a powerful way to tackle anxiety. 

So, an internal locus of evaluation allows you to decide for yourself what “good enough” looks like, regardless of what other people have said. It allows you to step free from conditions that tell you we are only good enough if……

Today, ask yourself the questions:

• What does good enough look like for me?

• What are the expectations people held about me that I now want to let go of?

• Is there a statement about yourself that you want to create – ready to call to mind if you begin to doubt your own “good-enoughness”? 

If you’re keen to break free from anxiety, then look out for more blogs within this anxiety-themed series.  And, if you’d like to talk through how counselling can help you towards a deeper exploration of your anxiety, do get in touch. We can work together through online counselling or through face-to-face counselling at my therapy room in Preston.