Growing up, I’ve always felt like I wasn’t enough or I wasn’t doing enough; I had feelings of inadequacy. So I struggled a lot to meet up and most times, I was hard on myself. One time I googled ‘feeling like you’re not good enough’ and I was surprised at the amount of article with people sharing about how they felt that way. Honestly, it felt comforting to know there are people out there who felt that way and to find out possible reasons for feeling inadequate.

Along the years, I’ve been in and out of feeling like I’m not good enough and I have put up some techniques to help me with that too. I think it’s remarkable that people rarely or don’t even feel inadequate. It’s such a blessing.

Years back, even up to 2018, I frequently felt inadequate. Then in 2019, when I couldn’t find the feelings of inadequacy, it came back because of something that happened that left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t doing enough and I wasn’t deserving. It was hard.

It’s 2020 and I have seen some improvements especially in the last few months of which I’m grateful for. However in March, the feeling of not being good enough came again and I guess I wanted to understand how it was for others. So I decided to ask people anonymously a few questions regarding feelings of inadequacy and I got fourteen (14) responses.

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Questions

I made a survey form and asked people to click on the link to fill anonymously so it’s safe to say that even I don’t know the people that responded but if you did and you’re reading this, thank you, it’s because of you that I’m able to publish this post.

Below were the questions asked:

• How often do you experience feelings of inadequacy?
• How does it feel?
• What causes it for you?
• How do you deal with it?

Responses

Below are the various responses to the questions asked. Each number represents a person’s response throughout. For example, the number 1 is the same person that answered all four questions. So, let’s get right into it.

How often do you experience feelings of inadequacy?

1. Sometimes
2. Very often
3. At least twice every month to put a time frame on it
4. Rarely
5. Rarely
6. Not very often, but once in while
7. Often
8. Not so often.
9. Seldom
10. Twice (this person probably means twice a month, well I’m not sure)
11. Not too often
12. Pretty much every day
13. Rarely
14. On a scale of 1-10 I’d say 4

How does it feel?

1. Suddenly feel less confident and simple tasks becomes difficulties
2. Helpless
3. It’s really scary, especially not being good enough. Being what everyone wants. Gets really scary.
4. Very uncomfortable
5. I feel lost
6. It feels like you are never the first choice for something or someone, you are never the best
7. It feels like you are too small
8. You feel guilty because you did not do your best.
9. Disappointing
10. Bad, disappointment
11. Sometimes it makes you feel so little and useless
12. It’s not painful, but it’s draining. I feel more unenergetic, passive.
13. So frustrating
14. Makes me feel powerless and it reduces my confidence.

What causes the feelings of inadequacy for you?

1. Failures
2. Not being able to do things I know I can do by some limiting factors
3. When I try to be perfect for everyone instead of being myself and making them love me for who I am.
4. Comments from friends and family
5. Low self confidence in who I am and what I have to offer to the world
6. Being turned down, being left out or at times it just comes
7. When you are overwhelmed by task or you take someone else’s achievement into your mind
8. Low self-esteem
9. Loss of trust
10. Deadline are not meet, wrong words
11. When pressured to give more than what you are able to give.
12. I feel like I’m holding the weight of the world, I just want to let it go, but I can’t.
13. No work
14. When I’m faced with a problem I can’t seem to solve or a solution a little hard to reach at the time

How do you deal with inadequacy?

1. I haven’t found a way to deal with the feeling
2. Remind myself that I am all I am and all I can be
3. Well I look at my achievements, remember that some people out there still love me and I keep going.
4. I visualize my future
5. I talk to friends who believe in me, their words encourage me to believe and have confidence
6. Still trying to figure that out but sometimes I tell myself to do better to be the best
7. You have to keep reminding yourself who you are. Remember past glories
8. Do my very best next time and always think positive
9. Pray for the person
10. Pray, ask help to God, make it advance and open to suggestion and criticism
11. Pray and remind myself that I have done the best that I could.
12. I take a deep breath to reset my mind. Until it comes back again.
13. I pray a lot
14. At some point, I’ve given up and other times, I just think less about it and accept some answers don’t come immediately.

I really enjoyed compiling this because I can relate to most of what was said. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing and compiling it. I have also written an article on ‘feelings of inadequacy’ and I will be publishing it on my blog next week so stay tuned.

Have you ever felt inadequate? How often does it happen? How does it feel? How do you deal with it?

Please share yours in the comments.

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