The "Not Good Enough" Lie

"Many of us believe that we need more knowledge, better frameworks, new systems, and sharper concepts in order to be able finally to transform ourselves into the people we truly want to be. Because we long for sustainable, deep change, we always look for the latest productivity hacks, personal development trends, and therapy buzz words, in the hope that they will finally offer us the key to mastery in our inner house."

"But solution-oriented therapy and coaching interventions, and clinical hypnotherapy approaches, assume something that seems paradoxical: They are based on the firm belief that we already know all that we need to know, and have all the skills and capabilities we need in order to thrive. This firm belief in our own fundamental self-efficacy - that we are already equipped, already capable, already knowing - is deeply anchored in ancient wisdom traditions and the stories we have told across cultures and across ages."

"It's the lack story. When we tell ourselves stories of lack, we pin our unhappiness and stuckness on a quality or skill we think we are lacking. We tell ourselves that we are sorely undersupplied in this resource, and that everybody else around us has it in abundance. We firmly believe that, if only we had more of X -"

Many people assume that acquiring more knowledge, frameworks, systems, or concepts will enable deep, lasting personal transformation. Self-knowledge and new perspectives can aid growth and provide validation, but many therapeutic and coaching approaches operate on the paradoxical assumption that people already possess necessary skills and capacities. A core belief in existing self-efficacy appears across ancient wisdom and cultural stories. Lack-stories produce stagnation by attributing unhappiness to missing qualities, encouraging comparison to perceived outliers, and promising future wholeness while diminishing present agency. Real change begins by recognising and activating capacities that are already present.

Read at Psychology Today