7 ways to redirect your “not enough” thoughts

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Everyone has “not enough” thoughts. These are the thoughts that sound like, “you’re not doing enough”, “you’re not good enough” or “you should be further ahead”. They are thoughts that make you think you are failing, behind or an imposter. In today’s podcast I will teach you 7 ways to redirect these thoughts. I will also explain the origin of these thoughts and the impact they have when you don’t redirect them.

Topics in this episode:

  • My trip to NYC with my husband and the thought that had me feeling like a failure while there

  • The importance of understanding the impact of your “not enough” thoughts

  • Why do we keep thinking “not enough” thoughts?

  • 7 ways to redirect your “not enough” thoughts

  • My favorite way to change my not enough thought – sufficiency

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Today on the podcast, I'm diving into a set of thoughts that are not only very common, but they are some of the most detrimental in creating an ambitious and balanced life. 

I call them you're not enough thoughts. 

They're the thoughts that you have that tell you you're not doing enough, that you're not good enough, or that you should be further ahead. 

These thoughts make you feel like you're failing, like you're not good enough, and have you focusing on all the things that you're not doing. 

In this episode, I want to teach you how to redirect these not enough thoughts. 

I'm going to walk you through 7 strategies for how to redirect your not enough thoughts when you realize you're thinking them. I'll explain the impact that these not enough thoughts have and why. 

You definitely want to learn these 7 strategies, and I'll even share with you why they keep popping up. 

We get super practical and tactical in this episode, so it might be worth pulling out a paper and pen to take some notes. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it. 

Hello, ambitious working moms. How is everyone doing today? 

My husband and I just got back from a five night - that's right, five nights, six days in New York City. 

And I'm going to talk a bit about that here today because there was something that came up on that trip that really got me thinking, and it's what has inspired this podcast today. 

But let me just say, my husband and I have not gone on an extended trip like this. We've done some weekends away, several times, but a nice long trip like this, just the two of us, I'm not even sure when the last time was, certainly since kids, so it has been over ten years. 

And it was so much fun to remember what it's like to travel together and adventure together and have no agenda except to just explore and do what we want and be with each other. 

Oh, my Gosh, it was so much fun. We're already planning our next one next fall, hopefully to Spain. Yes. I'm so excited about that too. 

So let me tell you about a thought that I had while I was in New York. Because we did a lot of things in New York. We did a lot of walking. We averaged 8 miles a day. 

We went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We saw some other big landmarks. We went to Central Park. We saw a few Broadway shows. And there was this theme that kept coming up for me throughout the time that we were there. 

Dreaming big in New York City.

And as we heard a lot about the history of New York and just being in the energy of New York, and that theme was about big dreams. New York is this place where you come to fulfill your big dreams. 

There was a time when people thought of New York as almost being, like, the center of the world, almost certainly the center of America. And it has this vibrancy and this energy, and, like, anything is possible come to New York, right? 

I mean, immigrants, so many immigrants came from all over the world to New York to just start a life, to dream big, to have their big dreams fulfilled for themselves and their family. 

And I took a whole lot of pictures of advertisements in New York because there were so many great advertisements in New York. It's so good. And I saw this set of advertisements, like, multiple times, particularly around the subway stations and in the subways. 

Goal Digger.

And the set of advertisements was around being a goal digger, not a gold digger, but a goal digger. There was, like, huge advertisements around this, around setting big goals and having big dreams and finding other people that also have big goals and big dreams as well. And so even the advertisements were talking about big dreams, big goals as you come to New York. 

And it was about day four that I started to clue into a thought that I'd been having over the course of the trip that was making me feel really small, that was actually having this very negative, almost restrictive effect on me. 

And that's what we're going to talk about here today, because I know that I am not alone in this thought. And a good majority of my clients come to me with this deep down thought about themselves, which is kind of what brings them to coaching in the first place. 

I'm going to tell you about this thought in a moment, but I want to tell you about how this thought made me feel. 

I just said that it made me feel small, and it did. It also made me feel inadequate, incapable. 

It made me feel like the life that I want is impossible for me. It made me feel like all of these things that I've done in my life up till this moment, they don't cut it. I started to feel like almost a failure in the midst of this. 

And it wasn't like I was walking around consciously thinking and feeling this way. It was just like I had this energy about me. Like, my shoulders were kind of hanging heavy and my heart was kind of running or beating a little faster. Like, there was some worry and anxiety, like low level, almost at this subconscious level. 

You ready to hear what the thought was? 

Because as soon as I realized I was thinking it, it hit me like a wall. I knew immediately it was causing all of these emotions and the sort of heaviness and the racing of my heart. 

Here was the thought, I should be further ahead. 

I should be further ahead. Like I haven't done enough in my life. 

I should be further ahead. I haven't made enough impact in my work and in the business that I do. 

I should be further ahead. Like, I don't have enough success. Like so many of my other colleagues in a shorter period of time have had way more success than me. 

I should be further ahead. 

It took me four days to realize that I had this thought swirling around in my head. Four days of walking around feeling terrible about myself, focusing on a subconscious level again, focusing on all the things that I'm not doing to make myself further ahead. 

Comparing myself.

Comparing myself to my friends and colleagues and their successes, focusing on a lack of progress and a lack of success instead of recognizing all of the progress and success that I do have. 

It's amazing, right? It's amazing how our thoughts and our mindsets have a very real effect on us, even when we don't realize that we're thinking it. 

I should be further ahead. 

I call this a not enough thought. 

And it's one of the go to's that my brain likes to think all of the time. It's usually triggered by seeing other people's successes, and it almost becomes like a habit for my brain to pick up on. 

Over the years, I've become much more aware of this thought when I'm thinking it, how it's affecting me, and for sure, it's lessened over the time. Like, my brain simply does not think that as much as it used to think that. 

Redirecting our thoughts.

And now I have a lot more skills and tools, the same tools that I teach my clients to use and how to redirect their thoughts when they're thinking this sort of not enoughness. And that's really what I want to focus on here today in this podcast. 

How do you redirect your not enough thoughts? And I want to offer to you several things that you can do. 

But my other hope for you, as you listen to this podcast, is to realize that you're not alone. 

Not enough thoughts are common, not just for all human beings and women in particular, but ambitious women for sure. 

And not enough thoughts - they sort of sound like this. 

  • I should be further ahead. 

  • I should be doing more. 

  • I'm not doing enough. 

  • I'm not good enough. 

  • I didn't get enough done today. 

  • I’m not enough. 

I have a few different podcasts that really talk about these not enough thoughts and how they often stem from perfectionism and people pleasing and hyperdoing. So I'll link to some of those other podcasts for sure, so you can go and listen to those. 

But today I really want to talk about the solution. 

I want to talk about what you do when you realize that you are in not enough thinking. 

Recently I started a monthly group coaching call for all of my past one on one clients. It happens just once a month, if you can attend. And it's for anyone that has worked with me one on one and is no longer working with me one on one. 

And it's a chance for my past one on one clients to meet each other and to kind of meet other ambitious, amazing working moms that have gone through coaching to sort of brush up on some of the conversations and strategies that we have talked about in coaching and to get coached by me. 

Again, we had one of these calls yesterday, and I was talking about this topic of not enoughness and redirecting your not enough thoughts. 

The first thing I did as we talked about this was brainstorm what happens when you're not enough, when you're thinking that you're not enough, what happens? 

Understanding the impact of our thoughts,

And this is a really important thing that I do with my clients as well. We start by understanding the impact that our thoughts have on us. In this case, our not enough thoughts. 

And so I asked the group, how do you feel when you're not enough? The group said things like anxious, overwhelmed, inadequate, angry, even judgy. 

And then I asked them, when you're having your not enough thoughts and you're feeling anxious and overwhelmed and inadequate, and all these emotions that come with it, what do you do? 

And obviously, for each one of us, it's a little bit different, which is why it's really important for you to do exercises like this to really think for yourself about the impact and the actions that you take when you're thinking not enough thoughts. 

Creating hyper awareness.

And the reason we do this is not to heap on more judgment and shame, but to bring up more hyper awareness. 

Most people clue into their not enough thoughts, meaning they realize that they're having these not enough thoughts, not because they're aware of the words that are going through their head, not because they're aware that their body is feeling a whole bunch of anxiety and overwhelm, but because they realize that they're doing things that are associated to those thoughts. 

We're trying to connect your thoughts to your actions and bring awareness to that. 

So here are some of the things that the group said. 

Feeling immobilized by the ‘not enough’ thoughts.

Now remember, not everybody does all of these things. It's very individual. But one person said that they feel very immobilized with not enough thoughts. Like, they stop doing things on their checklist, and they stop doing really important things for themselves as well, like wellness things, working out or getting to bed on time, maybe they even throw their diet out the window. 

It's like all of their good habits just go away and they feel completely immobilized by it and do nothing. They set themselves back even further to contrast that. 

The need to do more.

Someone else said they don't feel immobilized. They feel this hyper need to do more, to check more things off of the list, to sacrifice family time and sacrifice their personal time, and to compromise on their boundaries just to try to do more to make up for it. 

Procrastination.

Someone else talked about, and I love this phrase, she said she does, unproductive checkboxing. They look at their to do list, and they choose to do all of the easy things on it, the things that really don't matter and probably don't really need to get done. They're not the most important things, but they feel really good to check off. 

Comparing yourself to others.

I talked about how I go into comparison, how I start thinking about my friends and, my colleagues that are way more successful than I am. And I start thinking about the things that they've done that I haven't done that I kind of feel like I should be doing. 

In fact, my brain kind of goes into hyper mode thinking about all these things that I haven't done. It's almost like my brain starts making a list, a checklist of all the things that I haven't done, all of the ways that I'm letting people down and not focusing on the right priorities. My brain hyper focuses on a lack of progress, almost like in a frenetic way. 

Becoming more irritable.

And I'll just mention one more. One of the women in the group talked about how when she's in not enough thinking, how she gets really irritable, she's less patient with people, particularly her kids and family. She snaps, she's quick to anger, she doesn't listen very well, and she's just generally not very fun to be around. 

Building awareness to the actions.

Notice how specific we got as we talked about this. You have to get specific because you're building awareness to the actions and the things that you do when you're in not enough thinking. 

We want it to be as specific as possible so that your brain draws a connection between being in a not enough thought and doing one of these actions. 

Now, I will say this is not easy to do, being this self aware of your own thinking and brain. It's not easy. It's not easy to think about this and not go into judgment or shame. It's why we do this in coaching together. 

It's why I walk you through exactly how to break this down in your brain and make sure that you're staying away from shame and judgment, and then how that's what we use ultimately to kind of tailor a plan for you on how to direct your not enough thoughts.

Let's talk about solutions.

It was actually sort of funny to me because one of my past clients that was in this group coaching call, we were starting to talk about the, impact that these not enough thoughts were having and making these lists of things, and she didn't really want to talk about that. 

Her brain immediately wanted to start talking about the solution and the things that she does to get herself out of these thoughts. 

Becoming self aware to not enough thoughts.

It was uncomfortable to be self aware of her not enough thoughts. But she had some great ideas.

And I have seven strategies total that we talked about to help you redirect your not enough thoughts when you realize that you're having them. 

And the first one that came from her, was to pause. 

Sometimes that's all you really need, is to take a moment and to realize what's going on, to be like, oh, I'm having some really negative thoughts about myself right now. I'm in not enough thinking. 

And for some, that's really it. It's in a moment that they're able to sort of step away from their thoughts and kind of notice them and say, gosh, I'm thinking a whole lot of not very helpful thoughts right now that I don't want to be thinking. 

And the pause just allows them to have that perspective. 

Perspective is the second strategy I want to offer to you in how to redirect your not enough thoughts. 

The question I like to ask my clients to help them gain some perspective is, how else could you think about that? Or what's another story you could tell yourself about that?

For example, if your mind is spinning in, oh my gosh, I didn't get enough done today. I'm really far behind, and you're focusing on all the things that you wish you would have gotten to today, and you're feeling super anxious and overwhelmed and terrible about yourself because of all of that. 

The story you're telling yourself is, I'm a horrible worker. I should be more focused. I should be able to handle this. But that's not the only story. It's not the only perspective that you could have. 

Another perspective could be focus on the most important things, and I just let the rest go. 

Another perspective could be, or another story could be, if we want to use that terminology, my job is to put out fires. And there was a lot of them today, and I did that well, and I didn't get through the things that I wanted to get through. But that's okay. Most importantly, my job is to put out fires. 

Or another story could be, this is just a job. It's okay that I don't get through absolutely everything and sacrifice all of my time in order to do it. The most important thing is my family, and I'm just going to work hard and get everything that I could get done in a day and be done with it. 

Another story could be, wow. I was just really ambitious in thinking that I would get all of this done today. And truly, there just wasn't enough time. I misjudged it in my I should be further ahead thought that I tend to have. 

There's this colleague of mine that my brain likes to compare myself to in these not enough moments, and her name is Simone. And Simone went from making around $100,000 in her business to 1 million in a year's time. And now she makes like, 5 million. It's only been a few years since then or something like that. 

I'm making up all the numbers. I don't know the exact numbers, but it's something really big like that. And she was my roommate in January of 2020 when we went to a mastermind together. And at that time, we were both at the same income level. 

And then in the last three years, she's had ginormous success. And my brain likes to think it likes to compare myself to her and to look at her and to think she was able to do it. Why can't I? I should be further ahead. 

But there's so many other stories and perspectives I could have of this situation. 

I can remember the part of the story where she had actually worked for a decade or more before I even met her. Kind of in and out of her coaching business, failing and trying again and failing and trying again where I hadn't put any of that time in. 

And I could think about all of the time and attention that she put into her free Facebook group that she then eventually nurtured over time, over several years before she ever even offered to them coaching. And then as soon as she did, it sort of just exploded. 

I could think about how she really dialed in her message over time and how that dialed in message allowed her to take these big leaps and how it's really taken me a long time to get my messaging to the point where it's at right now. 

There are so many perspectives or angles of the story that help my brain to not focus on the not enoughness for me and just actually gives me perspective of the situation. 

It's almost like my brain wants to omit some of the facts of the situation and just tell myself just a sliver of the story, but not the whole story. 

In this strategy, what you're doing is you're not only telling yourself a different story, but you're widening your view to make sure that you're including all of the facts. 

Give yourself credit.

The third strategy is to give yourself credit. Focus on the things that you have already been successful at. Focus on the things that you have done. Focus on the progress that you have made. 

Essentially, you're focusing on the enoughness instead of the not enoughness. 

You could literally write lists or talk to yourself out loud, reminding yourself of all the things that you have done and accomplished. 

Focus on your importance.

The fourth strategy that we spoke about in this group was to focus on your importance, your significance. 

This is actually one of my absolute favorites because it's basically taking the things that you've done, the progress made, your enoughness, and thinking about why it matters, why your contribution that you've made up till now is important. 

Why is it significant? 

It's not just naming the progress and the achievements, but it's pushing your brain to think about what matters about this. Why is this such a big deal? 

Wowing yourself.

And then the fifth strategy is very similar, but I call it wowing yourself. It's thinking, wow, I did that. Wow, that's amazing. That's remarkable. 

It's finding the perspective of the things that you've accomplished either in that day or in your life. It kind of depends on where you're at in the not enough thinking, but it's thinking about and wowing yourself for the progress that you've made. 

For me, this gets me thinking about all of the things that I've done that truly are remarkable. 

When you step back and you think about it, to think about this podcast and the fact that it has almost 150,000 downloads. Women listen to it all over the world. It's in the top 3% of all podcasts. 

Then I think about the book contribution that I just made and the future books that are percolating in my mind. 

And then I start thinking about the individual women that I have impacted and what they have done as a result of our coaching. 

The dream businesses that have been started, the big leaps in careers, the awards that have happened, the time gained back with family, the deep down sense of confidence that so many of the women that I work with experience that is just literally life changing. 

I'm wowed. I'm in awe of the impact that I am making on a regular basis. If I stopped coaching altogether and I closed down my business, I have made such an impact in so many women's lives. it's amazing. It's awe inspiring to me. 

And for you, maybe you don't own a business. For most of you, you don't. And you're not a coach or you don't do what I do. 

But if I even think about how amazing it is that I am parenting my kids in the way that I'm parenting, the impact that I'm having on their life, so that they become the amazing and wonderful and kind and ambitious humans that I know that they're capable of and how I have helped shape that in them. 

And I think about the potential of what is ahead of them. And it's remarkable to me, and I take credit for my piece of it. 

If for you, you have a lot of I'm not doing enough thoughts today, I'm not doing enough today. You might focus on how amazing it is that you're just simply a working mom. Against all odds, against cultural norms, you have achieved what you have achieved. 

Women in leadership roles, that's only happened in the last 40 years, really. 

I'm 41. Which means around the time I was born, women leaders, women executives, women CEOs, women owned businesses, those things barely existed. There weren't very many of them out there. Which means in my lifetime, I have been a part of a complete cultural shift, fighting old ways and old habits in a dominantly white male world. 

That's amazing. I am wowed by the fact that I'm a part of that, that you're a part of that. So this strategy is to focus your brain on the wow. 

Redirecting your not enough thoughts.

The 6th strategy I want to offer to you to help you redirect yourself out of not enough thoughts. Is to remember why you've made those choices to begin with. 

Remember why you chose to prioritize.

If you're in not enough thoughts because you feel like you didn't get enough done today, and you stop working at 5pm In order to go be with your family, because that is, in fact, your priority. You have to remember the reasons you've chosen to prioritize that. 

Of course, you could keep working and get more done and check more things off of your list so that you get out of your not enough thoughts. But you're not choosing to do that. And you have to remember the reason why. 

Remember why you're making the choices you're making. 

If you are choosing to focus on your career instead of being a stay at home mom and your brain is sort of stuck, and I don't spend enough time with my kids, remember why you're making the choice to work. 

Remember all of the things that it's bringing you, the things that you gain by working.

For me in my thinking, I should be further ahead. I need to remember that I have chosen to grow my business in a very sustainable way. 

I don't overwork and I never have. At this point, I don't work more than 35 hours a week. Oftentimes it's less. If I spend more time in my business, I might have more success. But I choose not to because I want the time and the energy and the presence with my kids. 

Remember why you're making the choices you're making and why you've made the choices you've made. 

Ground yourself back in reasoning and purpose. 

The last strategy I want to offer to you is the one that I use most commonly, and it's the one that I used when I was in New York after I realized that I was in this not enough thought, thinking that I should be further ahead. 

The strategy is sufficiency. 

It's focusing on feeling sufficient and satisfied in this very moment because you cannot feel sufficient and satisfied and not enough at the same time. 

For me, this is like focusing on the present moment. As soon as this thought hit me, remember I told you it was like I ran into a wall to it, right? It's like, oh, my gosh, I saw it. All of a sudden, I stopped. In my mind, I paused, I noticed the thought. 

And then I started thinking about how I was holding my husband's hand and how wonderful that felt and how we were having this amazing adventure together. 

I started thinking about my parents, who were watching my kids, who I am, deeply in love with, and how grateful I am to them that they gave us this time.

 And then I started looking around New York, focusing on my five senses. The businesses and the buildings are just remarkable. How tall the buildings are, right? How there are so many people that are walking around and navigating the city and using the subways like, it's just remarkable to me. 

And then there was the smell of bagels and peanuts and food just everywhere we went. 

And just in a matter of minutes, as I allowed all of these things to flash through my mind, I started focusing on how deeply satisfying and sufficient I feel. 

How if I could just bottle up this moment and carry it with me forever, I would, because it just feels so darn good. 

In so many ways, I am right where I should be living exactly the life that I want, and I feel deeply sufficient and satisfied in my life.

So I focus on that, and then all those not enough thoughts, they sort of dissipated. 

Now, for you, who might not be in New York or, traveling or any of that, focusing on sufficiency might just look like closing your eyes and focusing on the comfort of the moment. 

Thinking about how the chair that you're sitting in is holding you up and is steadying you. Thinking about how you have enough food in your belly. Maybe you're not hungry or you're not thirsty. Thinking about how you really don't need anything else right now. 

There's warmth. Your belly is full. You're safe. Thinking about the calmness in the room or the quietness in the room. 

Tuning into your five senses is one of the most powerful things you could do to not just bring you back into the present, but to really focus yourself on the sufficiency of the moment. 

Now, I want to remind you of something, because this came up for one of my clients that was on this group coaching call yesterday. Redirecting your not enough thoughts is not a one and done deal. It's sort of a way of life. 

I would be lying if I told you that you can solve your not enough thinking forever. 

I mean, for sure, you can lessen it. For sure, you can learn how to control it by redirecting your thoughts. Those are the kinds of things that we do in coaching. 

But your not enough thoughts are going to continue to pop up. 

And I would rather, as your coach, teach you the strategies and the tools to redirect your thoughts than to try to create a life or a set of circumstances for your life where you would never have these sort of thoughts again, It's totally impractical to think that.

Now there's a few reasons why these thoughts continue to happen. 

One is they're habitual. You've been thinking you're not enough thoughts on a daily basis for many, many years. 

Remember, 95% of your thoughts are the same thoughts that you had yesterday. 

You're in a habit of thinking these negative not enough thoughts, mostly on a very subconscious level. 

So, of course, it's just going to keep popping up until you decide to bring it to consciousness and change the habits or create new ones, like we're doing here, in what we're talking about, in redirecting your thoughts. 

Now, there's another reason why these thoughts keep coming up, and it's survival based. Your brain is designed to keep you alive, not to make you happy, not to focus on all of the good things in your life. Your brain's job is to keep you alive. 

And One of the strategies it uses to keep you alive is to focus on all of the not enough and all of the failures and all of the things that you're doing wrong or you could be doing in an effort to help you change them, to help you make different choices. 

Your brain is bringing awareness to all of the not enoughness in your life so that you fix it, not that you indulge in it, not that you wallow in it, not so that you carry it around with heaviness on your shoulders and in your heart. 

It's a survival mechanism. And your brain is going to do everything possible to ensure that you stay alive. So, of course, it's going to keep coming up. Of course, your brain wants to show you your shortcomings and your failures so that you try to fix them, or at least you deal with them in such a way, and decide if they're a real problem or not. 

Working moms, I think of you every day. 

I think about how amazing and remarkable you are. 

I think about the value that you're bringing, your family, your community, this world, just because you're you. 

You are enough. You're doing enough. You're good enough. 

You are exactly where you should be. You have enough of what it takes to create for yourself the life that you want. I know it, and I want to help you know it too. 

Reach out. Schedule a free call with me if you need help learning how to believe in yourself and your enoughness in a new way and learn how to implement all of the strategies that we talked about today. 

I would love to connect with you and talk to you about coaching. All right, working moms. Until then, let's get to it. 

Rebecca Olson