The Lies You Tell Yourself About Not Being ‘Enough’

Leticia Francis Author

The lie of “not enough” is survival mode in disguise. This week, we expose it and reclaim your worth. You are already enough.

There’s a voice that lives inside too many women. A voice that whispers — or sometimes screams — the same damn message on repeat:

“You’re not enough.”

Not smart enough. Not pretty enough. Not educated enough. Not accomplished enough. Not thin enough. Not patient enough. Not lovable enough.

And if you’re really honest, sometimes the lie gets louder: You’re just… not enough. Period.

I know that voice well. Because it lived in me for years. It shaped the way I loved, the way I worked, the way I mothered, the way I looked at myself in the mirror.

And here’s the most dangerous part: I believed it.

🚨 Where the Lie Comes From

Nobody wakes up one day and decides to believe they’re unworthy. That belief is planted. Conditioned. Watered. Reinforced until it becomes your second skin.

Maybe it came from:

• A parent who withheld affection unless you performed.
• A teacher who told you you’d “never amount to much.”
• A partner who chipped away at your self-esteem with control, criticism, or silence.
• A society that constantly tells women, especially Black women, that we must be twice as good to earn half as much.

When you’ve been told, shown, and conditioned that who you are isn’t enough, you start to fill the gap by over-functioning.

You hustle harder. You please everyone. You shrink in rooms where you should be taking up space. You hold your breath, waiting for someone else to validate what you should already know.

The lie becomes the lens you live through.

😔 How It Shows Up in Daily Life

Let’s get specific, because “not enough” doesn’t just sit quietly in your head. It shows up everywhere:

• At Work: You overprepare, overdeliver, and overextend yourself — but still question if you deserve the promotion. When you’re praised, you minimize it. When you make a mistake, you obsess.
• In Relationships: You stay in situationships or marriages where you’re undervalued because some part of you thinks, This is the best I can get. You overgive, under-receive, and call it love.
• In Motherhood: You guilt yourself into exhaustion. Homemade snacks, spotless laundry, every activity scheduled. And still, at night, you lie in bed thinking, I should have done more.
• With Yourself: You never let yourself rest without shame. You never look in the mirror without finding flaws. You never celebrate wins without immediately moving the goalpost.

This is how the lie works. It keeps you running on a treadmill toward an ever-moving finish line.

🧠 Why “Enough” Never Feels Possible

Here’s the raw truth: The problem isn’t that you’re not enough. The problem is that your brain was trained to reject enoughness.

Survival mode teaches you that safety comes from proving yourself. If you stop hustling, stop fixing, stop pleasing, the ground will fall out from under you.

So even when you hit the milestones, the degree, the job, the house, the kids, you still feel hollow. Because “enough” was never about achievement. It was about self-worth.

And self-worth can’t be outsourced.

💥 Breaking Down the Lies

Let’s dismantle some of the most common lies you tell yourself:

1. “I’ll be enough when I achieve more.” Truth: Achievement without self-worth is a black hole. You can’t work your way into feeling worthy.
2. “I’ll be enough when I look different.” Truth: Changing your body doesn’t change your belief system. The mirror will always find something else.
3. “I’ll be enough when they love me back.” Truth: If you need someone else to confirm your worth, you’ll keep attracting people who reflect your insecurity.
4. “I’ll be enough when I fix myself.” Truth: You’re not broken. You’re conditioned. And you can’t heal by endlessly performing repairs you don’t need.

🌱 What Enoughness Actually Looks Like

Enoughness isn’t about arrival. It’s about acceptance.

It looks like:

• Saying no without spiraling into guilt.
• Celebrating progress instead of punishing imperfection.
• Resting without justification.
• Looking in the mirror and saying, “This body carries me, and that’s enough.”
• Letting love in without wondering if you’ve earned it.

It’s radical. And it’s possible.

✨ How to Start Believing You’re Enough

1. Catch the Lie in Real Time When you hear, “You’re not enough,” don’t just swallow it. Ask: Whose voice is this? Where did I first hear it? Often, it’s not even yours.
2. Challenge the Script Flip the lie with truth. “You’re lazy” → “Rest is my right.” “You’ll never be loved” → “I am already lovable.” “You have to earn this” → “I already deserve this.”
3. Practice Receiving Start small. Accept compliments without deflecting. Accept help without apologizing. Accept joy without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
4. Redefine Success Stop chasing external markers. Success is feeling safe in your own skin. It’s peace in your nervous system. It’s joy that doesn’t need to be earned.

💬 A Personal Example

I remember sitting in a jail cell after being arrested because of a partner’s addiction. My mother visited me, looked me dead in the eyes, and asked: “Why do you love everyone more than you love yourself?”

That question haunted me. Because she was right. I was living proof of the lie. I believed I wasn’t enough, so I poured love into everyone else, hoping one day it would be poured back into me.

It took years of self-awareness, reprogramming, and reinvention to finally understand: I was enough all along. I just didn’t believe it.

🚨 Why This Matters

The lie of “not enough” isn’t just hurting you. It’s hurting your children, your relationships, your legacy. Because what you believe about yourself becomes what you model.

If you want your daughters to grow up knowing they’re worthy, you have to start showing them what that looks like. If you want your sons to respect women who know their value, you have to embody it first.

Breaking this lie is generational work.

💎 Final Word

Let me tell you something no one else may have said to you:

You are already enough. Not because you’ve achieved. Not because you’ve proven. Not because you’ve survived.

But because you are here.

And that is more than enough.

🔥 Your Next Step: Join the Survival Mode Exodus Membership

If this hit you in the gut, it’s because you’ve been living with the lie for too long.

The Survival Mode Exodus Membership is where women come to dismantle these lies, heal the survival scripts, and rewrite their story of worth.

Inside, you’ll get:

• Monthly coaching on identity, self-worth, and boundaries
• Journals + rewiring prompts to challenge your “not enough” narratives
• Expert sessions on trauma, somatics, and nervous system healing
• A community of women disrupting survival mode together
• Six months of 1:1 coaching to support your unique journey

💎 Founders pricing is locked at just $37/month or $370/year. Only 20 spots available.

👉🏾 Join now. Because “enough” is not something you earn. It’s something you remember.