Changing the rules of the ‘not good enough’ game

It’s a hard game to play, the ‘not good enough’ game. And its cousin, the ‘not doing enough’ game. And all its other relatives. Mostly, it’s an unwinnable game.

We might feel like we did enough one day, but then we have to maintain and exceed that level of productivity forever or we’re failing.

We might feel like we were enough on a sunny Tuesday in May when the stars happened to align, but those days are rare and out of our control, and the next day we’re back on the hamster wheel running at a carrot dangling just out of reach.

If I just get a bit more sleep. If I just got my schedule in order. If I just earned a little more money. If I just lost 5kg, if I just whatever, then I will have ARRIVED. I’ll be good enough, I’ll have done enough.

Nah.

If you’re playing the not good enough game, all you’ll win is a new, further away set of goal posts to aim for.

That game is rigged.

Here’s a thought experiment - what if we started playing a different game?

A game that we chose, not one that we fell into by default.

What game would you play?

What’s meaningful to you? How do you want to feel in your life? What’s interesting, what are you curious about? What’s fun? (this is a game, after all).

Here’s an example from my life: creativity and curiosity are values of mine, and I always envied artists I knew who were prolific. I used to wonder how they managed that when I was always so stop-start with my own art. I wanted what they had - a kind of creative freedom that I didn’t know how to reach.

For me, making art always used to be a struggle because while I loved it, I was playing the ‘not good enough’ game here, too - if I was just more focussed, if I just learned how to draw better, if I just had more confidence in my art, if I could just feel comfortable claiming that I was an artist, if I just spent all the time that I spent wasting on the internet painting, etc.

No wonder it was a struggle with the massive suitcase of expectations I was carrying.

But now I’m playing a new game. There are two rules. Make art that feels true, and learn something from everything I create. That’s it.

All my art has heart behind it - I’m drawing something I’m feeling, or trying to represent a dream I had, or am creating something for someone I love - so if I’m creating from that place, it’s going to feel good.

And if I’m learning something from everything I create, then I’m trying new things, using my art materials in different ways, growing as an artist. I’m not caring about some arbitrary ‘good enough’ measure, because it feels true and I learned something.

Same with writing - eighteen months ago I started taking fiction writing seriously, and my fiction writing game has similar rules. I want to master the craft of writing as best as I am able, so with that aim it’d be so easy to feel like what I’m writing now isn’t good enough. But with the rules of ‘finish what you start’ and ‘learn something from everything you write’, it’s not actually relevant how good it is, it matters that I tried, I finished the story I started, and I learned something from it that I can carry into the next story.

These games are satisfying, fulfilling. They feel good because they help me live two of my values - creativity and curiosity.

So what games might you play?

You could have games in relationship (I want to create a partnership that feels like we’re building the most epic blanket fort known to humankind), games of love (I want the world to feel like a lover who is out to delight me), games of feeling (I want to feel comfortable in my own skin), games of healing (I want to stop playing the ‘not good enough’ game).

What’s your new game, and what are your new rules?

Also, it’s important to note that it might take some time to drop the not good enough game - some of us have been playing it for a really long time. And so when you notice you’ve fallen back into the old game, please don’t beat yourself up and feel like a failure! I encourage you to do the exact opposite and feel good about noticing the slip, because you noticing is you choosing something different.

A new game.

Where you write the rules.

If you’d like help, send me a message - sometimes it’s really useful to have a sounding board to help you find your new game and write some new rules that align with your values and feel good. And it can be nice to have someone to talk to for the first little while as you start to change from the old to the new.

Let’s play!