“I’ve done everything right and it’s still not enough!”
We live in a culture where the overarching message while growing up is to “work hard and you will be rewarded with what you want. Hard work gets you the outcomes you desire.” I have to admit that I love the sentiment behind these messages– we have to learn to work hard and understand that things don’t “just happen,” and that we are responsible for our own behaviors and actions.
However, I am seeing more and more women talk about the crushing disappointment when they have worked hard, they have done “everything right,” and it’s still just not enough to get them where they want to be.
They are left feeling confused, overwhelmed, and often sitting in a place of utter defeat.
I wish there was an easy answer for how we can hack the system and be guaranteed the results that we’ve worked so hard for. While I don’t have the answer for how we can use an easy hack (please let me know if you’ve figured that one out!), I do know that there are some ways we can challenge our own thoughts to help us find more balance along the way, especially if things are looking different than we had hoped for.
Are Your Thoughts Keeping You Stuck?
To start off, let’s talk about our internalized thoughts and beliefs and how these may be impacting you. You may have heard the phrase “cognitive distortions” before and it’s simply referring to identified patterns of thoughts that all people experience. Some people may experience one, or a combination of many, cognitive distortions. It’s important to know that ALL people experience these, but when we begin to be impacted by patterns of specific cognitive distortions, it becomes necessary to make changes.
There are three types of thoughts that I want to highlight and these thoughts may be keeping you stuck in the mindset that you are “doing everything right and it’s still not enough.”
Should Statements: statements that you make to yourself about the things you “should” be doing, “ought” to be doing, or things that you “must” do. It is so common for these statements to come up without thought, but they have a huge impact on us. Should statements inherently imply that we are not doing enough; these statements can also reinforce unrealistic expectations that we’ve unknowingly placed on ourselves.
Personalization: statements that imply that you are responsible for events that are outside of your control. These statements can often be tied to feelings of inadequacy and incompetence within ourselves. Let’s say you don’t get hired for a job you were really excited about. When you find out that the hiring team went a different direction, you start to tell yourself that you “just aren’t smart enough, charismatic enough, etc.” Meanwhile, none of those things have been communicated to you– you are personalizing a decision without any evidence to support these thoughts.
Control Fallacies: statements or beliefs about how much control you have over your life/situation. These may be internal (you have complete control over yourself and your surroundings) or external (you are a victim and have no control over your life). Internal and external control fallacies live on opposite ends of the spectrum, but it can be common for people to believe both at the same time– this can be confusing and overwhelming! An example of this is that “I am in control over my own successes (internal), but things keep getting in the way and keep me from achieving them (external)!”
Do you see yourself in any of these examples? I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, especially if you grew up with some of the cultural messages that were discussed earlier. You may be thinking, great, so now what?
Well, there are a lot of ways to challenge these automatic thoughts and to challenge the perspective you’ve been sitting with! Reframing thoughts is such a powerful tool to lean on when you are feeling out of control. I’m not talking about toxic positivity here– not everything is great all the time and you don’t have to try to convince yourself of this. I’m talking about shifting from one extreme of thought to a more neutral place.
So instead of thinking “I should be farther along in my life,” can this thought shift to “My timeline is different than what I planned. I have managed some really hard situations and I am making progress even when I feel stuck.” The latter offers kindness and compassion for the situations you have navigated, and it reminds you that you are making progress, even if it looks a little different than you expected.
Are Your Systems Keeping You Stuck?
People learn to function in systems within every aspect of their lives. Some systems are placed upon us, others are created by us. Sometimes when we get stuck in a place where we feel that we’ve tried everything, done all the right things, and it’s still not enough, we have to be ready to look at the systems we are using in our lives and re-evaluate the effectiveness of them.
Have you heard that old phrase that “the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results?” It can be a humbling experience to acknowledge that maybe we have to do something different than what we have been doing; we have to make a decision to say “this isn’t working even if it ‘should’ be.”
Believe me, I know it’s a hard thing to do, and sometimes things like our ego or pride can get in the way of making changes. What’s your ultimate goal, though? To “be right” and achieve your goal through the “original plan,” or is it to simply achieve the goal?
It can be hard to make changes to things that we’ve been doing, and potentially been doing for a long time. There is safety in routine and knowing what to expect from ourselves or others.
I can only speak for myself, but I know that some of the biggest, scariest risks I’ve taken (and had not planned on taking) in life have given me exactly what I’ve wanted. Had I not stepped into that vulnerable space of changing what I was doing, I truly don’t believe that I would have achieved certain goals with the systems I was working within. It doesn’t mean that I failed, it just meant that my efforts were misplaced.
Are YOU Keeping Yourself Stuck?
This is a hard question to ask yourself.
I love the phrase “we judge others by their actions, and we judge ourselves by our intentions.” You may have the best intentions while working towards a goal, but are your intentions simply enough? Maybe sometimes intentions are enough, but are your actions aligned with your intentions?
I work on this quite often with women, and it can be a hard conversation– sometimes the biggest barrier to our success is ourselves. I truly believe that most people are trying their best. If people don’t have the tools to be able to pivot when they need to, of course it becomes overwhelming and defeating to keep trying to make things happen.
When we look at our thoughts, systems, and our own actions, we can gain so much insight about what’s working and what’s not working. This can be hard to do alone– you can’t see your own blindspots, for goodness sake! It’s important to know that sometimes things just don’t happen when they should. You deserve space and support to work through these things, and you don’t have to do it alone.
Reach out to us and let us support you to help you not feel so stuck.
