Think back to when you were a child, about six or seven years old. How you try to make sense of the world, how you sit at school and learn about this and that – hopefully something that does help you to make sense of it (the world that is). And then a few years further on, when you were eleven or twelve or even thirteen years old, when on top of that you start to feel about yourself and others differently and try to find your own voice in all the chatter around you. And then a teacher hands you a piece of paper that says “not enough”.
How does that make you feel? What does it mean for you to read this, to be judged as “not enough”?
Firstly, that would be inappropriate for a teacher, right? Secondly, your parents would probably have been outraged and thirdly, of course nobody would do something like that. Or would they?
A few days ago, when I was in that waking state where the brain somehow wanders of its own accord and deep thought sets in effortlessly, the Austrian grading system came to mind. It consists of the numbers 1 to 5 and for each number there is a meaning: 1 means “sehr gut”, which corresponds to “very good”, 2 means “gut” or “good”, 3 means “befriedigend”, which can be translated as “satisfactory”, 4 means “genügend” or “enough” and 5 means “nicht genügend”, which can be translated as “not enough”. This system starts from the age of 6 and applies until graduation from university. It was at that moment that I realized: not only are our effort, intelligence and talent – translated into “performance” – evaluated and graded in this way from a young age, there is also a grade that actually means “not enough”, that you are somehow not enough, and that is when you fail.
I started thinking about the many people who struggle with their self-worth, who feel inadequate in most areas of their lives, who don’t feel worthy of x, y or z, who suffer from imposter syndrome and who don’t feel enough. What has happened to all these people?
Theories about self-worth are varied and differ greatly from one another. While there are theories and thinkers such as psychologist Nathaniel Branden who completely separate the sense of self-worth from other people and their opinion of us or their view of us, there are also theories that claim that a person’s self-worth can serve as an indicator of how others see and value them and the nature of their relationships (see, for example, M. R. Leary and colleagues).
Well, ideally, self-worth is not at all dependent or even influenced by what others think, feel, say, etc. about one, because then, intuitively speaking, self-worth would be something only you ascribe to yourself, it would be unshakeable and entirely untouchable by any external influence. No achievement, no knowledge, no accomplishment would be necessary to feel worthy and enough. Doesn’t that sound great? And although this can be achieved through things like extensive self-reflection, letting go of old beliefs and conditioning, working on one’s Self, self-love and by giving zero about how others view ourselves and what society expects, it seems that self-worth in our lived reality is very much influenced by conditions that lie outside the Self. Why is this the case? No one is born feeling inadequate, are they? However, making our worth independent of external conditions is not exactly something we teach or learn in our society.
Rather, it seems that we learn very early on to compare ourselves with others or to compare our performance with that of others. We learn that what we do and how we do it determines our value. We learn that we will be judged for almost everything we do or what we stand for, but not how to deal with that judgment. And this begins at the age when we as humans are most susceptible to influence, when our self-image and worldview are shaped – precisely when it is most consequential for ourselves and our way of life.
So, I ask again: Where do all these anxious and struggling people come from? And why are things the way they are? Is it possible that society isn’t even interested in changing? Perhaps because people who need to perform in order to feel worthy, enough and accepted are more inclined to overachieve, appease and keep the economy going out of fear of devaluation and failure?
And while there are certainly other reasons that make people feel inadequate, and while professional feedback about a child’s or student’s learning and development can be useful and important, I want us to think about how can we change the way things are? How can we teach and support children to develop into self-loving, confident and empathetic adults who feel worthy and enough while having fun learning? How can we stop the constant comparing, pressure to perform and succeed and move to an authentic and intentional way of living? How can we thrive more and be less driven?