Defining your own standard
It’s something seemingly trivial – something most limit to childhood games at recess and that competitive sports team you tried out for when you were 13-years-old.
It’s something you’re supposed to grow out of, something adulthood erases.
But what happens when you find yourself two months away from completing your undergraduate degree, and five months away from your 22nd birthday, and the struggle of being “good enough” is still lingering like the world’s worst hangover?
Well, in that case, you’re me.
Growing up, believing I had the ability to do something certainly wasn’t on my list of strengths. It took suggestions, encouragement, and then some more encouragement with anything I decided to do.
We can chalk up playing volleyball and basketball in the seventh and eighth grades to the teachers who relentlessly pushed me to try out for the teams. Back then, I thought it was the height thing – you know, the fact that I was probably a full foot taller than half the girls on every other team. Looking back now, even I can’t credit winning the volleyball semi-final match with 14 points off my serves alone, or my 28 points in just my second game on the senior girls basketball team, to the height factor.
Then there’s trying out for competitive hockey, that one goes right to my dad. Even playing a sport that I essentially breathed and ate for breakfast took convincing. I made the team, and with that came some of the best memories in traveling to games and having to get suited up in the back of my mom’s van as we drove through a snow storm, to away tournaments that resulted in my coaches wearing pink wigs and doing the tango…with each other.
Applying to my first job, getting involved at school, and even something as simple as socializing with others I didn’t know – it all took a push in the right direction, a push I was never good at giving myself.
It all came down to the sole idea of not being good enough.
Now, looking straight ahead at graduation, graduate applications, the real world, and chasing down what I want out of life, “good enough” has resurfaced. What’s worse, however, is that I recognize now that it never really went away.
It was never something trivial, or limited to childhood games at recess.
It’s not something you grow out of, or something that adulthood erases.
Being good enough is, instead, something we’re all forced to think about, and something we fear endlessly – even if subconsciously.
Being good enough is something that we’re supposed to prove.
The problem stands, though, in whom we’re proving it to.
It took until my third year at the University of Guelph to volunteer for The Ontarion, a publication where I now serve as the Sports & Health editor. It took 20 years of my life to recognize I could be good enough if I only gave myself the opportunity to do so. It took wanting to prove to myself that I could do anything I wanted.
That’s where it all changed.
I wasn’t hindering myself anymore; I wasn’t holding myself back. I let myself try.
The key factor there is try.
Being good enough isn’t about accomplishments or the gauge of success. Being good enough isn’t a competition holding a contrast of everything everyone else has that you don’t.
It doesn’t go away, I would be lying if I told you that. It sticks around, even when you’re supposed to be this higher educated individual checking off another 20-something year of your life. It doesn’t care that you’re supposed to be an adult.
But it’s not about outrunning it. It’s not about overcoming it. It’s about being good enough for yourself.
It’s about proving to yourself that you hold the ability to try to push your boundaries, and your potential. Being good enough is about providing yourself the opportunity to be you.