In this episode, Dr. K’dee Crews and Amanda Anguish unpack the core belief “I’m not good enough.” They explore how identity (“I am”), moving targets of “enough,” perfectionism/procrastination, comparison, and others’ opinions shape worth—and how to rebuild it on a steadier foundation with practical steps you can start today.

<p>In this episode, Dr. K’dee Crews and Amanda Anguish unpack the core belief “I’m not good enough.” They explore how identity (“I am”), moving targets of “enough,” perfectionism/procrastination, comparison, and others’ opinions shape worth—and how to rebuild it on a steadier foundation with practical steps you can start today.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Beautiful Minds Wellness

The Brain People Podcast 2026

Amanda Anguish

K'dee Elsen Crews

Rethinking Your Worth

Welcome to the Brain People podcast, a show where 4 mental health experts team up to bring you practical tools for overcoming mental health challenges.

The Brain People don't replace your doctor or therapist, but we will give you some extra tools to help you on your journey.

So join us as we fight mental illness, 1 episode at a time.

I'm your host for this episode and my name is Amanda Anguish and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm joined by my co-host.

And we're going to be talking about 1 of our favorite topics, which is core beliefs.

But if you haven't listened to some other episodes that Katie has done, I know, on core beliefs, you can stop and go watch those first and then come back because we're going to get a little bit deeper and more specific in this episode.

And we're going to talk about a very specific core belief.

So, Katie, what is 1 of the most popular or common core beliefs that people have?

Yeah, Amanda, It's quite amazing to just see this theme in a lot, I would say the vast majority of my clients, and I'm sure for your clients as well.

It's actually 1 of the examples that I use when I'm doing it, so it's very interesting that we're talking about it today.

Yeah, it's the I'm not good enough, right?

And often I'll tell people, like, think for a moment and you'll find at least, you know, a couple, but the general belief is I'm not good enough.

So why do you think so many of us have that belief?

I think that it starts for most people in childhood.

And If you think about the enough component, a lot of things can contribute to that.

Obviously there could be some major life events like trauma, and in the other episodes we've talked about how core beliefs are formed.

But then even smaller things, so this is an example I often give to my clients with I'm not good enough, is if you were constantly compared to a sibling.

That comparison alone can start to create this belief, I'm not good enough.

I'm not as smart as my brother or I'm not as athletic, my parents love or praise my brother or my sister more than me.

And so even small things like that, that happen gradually or repeatedly over time can start to be like that pebble in your shoe that starts to annoy more and more and then all of a sudden it's this big belief, I am not good enough.

And it doesn't even have to be that overt, like saying, oh, you're not like your sibling or whatever.

I think even sometimes it can be where if somebody keeps pointing out something that somebody has been doing, you can often translate that, well, I'm not doing that, or I'm not enough because I'm not.

And they may have never said that you're not doing that, but just the emphasis on somebody else doing it.

But yeah, and I think so that's childhood, but then there are so many life events and we don't really have time to like name each 1.

It can be within the religion, religious context of not meeting a certain standard constantly.

What we see a lot today with social media, you're seeing different people's lives and you're comparing.

I'm not skinny enough, right, which is so sad.

TikTok is contributing to a lot of eating disorders recently and so forth because there's this constant comparison.

So whether it's overt, as you mentioned, explicit or implicit, it's easy for us to start to develop the sense of I'm not enough.

Yeah, a hyper focus on it, it seems to be that it gives us the impression that we're not good enough.

So what are the negative effects that this has on us?

Like, what is this doing to us when we have this belief?

So we're going to answer that by breaking it down piece by piece.

So the I am, before we get to the not good enough, is identity.

So when we talk about what are the negative effects, well, this isn't just a belief.

I am, and then whatever comes after that, what you're saying is, I'm placing all of my worth and my value on whatever that may be.

And so the weight of this belief is huge because of this identity I am.

So you're talking about the fact that when I say I am, it's kind of, I call it a behavior that we hyper focus on ourselves and who we are versus just anything else that could be going on around us, or I'm focusing on me versus looking out around me and seeing other people even.

And so If we put all of our eggs in 1 basket, saying this is all of who I am, when things threaten that, it crumbles, right?

So an example of this, and I'll mention this a little bit later on with role, confusing our roles with identity, is I refrain from saying I am a psychologist.

Because I've seen this with my clients, when you retire, when something happens and I can no longer work as a psychologist if I believe I am something and that's my identity, when something threatens that, then my worth is gone.

And this is why so many people are struggling with their worth, is because they're over-identifying with other things.

And 1 of the podcast episodes that we'll maybe do in the future is on identity itself.

And 1 popular thing that's happening recently is that we're over identifying with a few variables of our lives.

And then when that is not secure, which they're not, then our worth, our value, and depression, anxiety, and other consequences come from that heavy weight that we place on I am.

Yeah, I've seen people do this even with their jobs when they retire.

What happens if you ever identify with what you do in your work?

Like you were saying, psychologists, but anything that we do, even if the job isn't taken from us and we retire at 65 years old, well, who are we after that?

And we get, we, you know, might go crazy because, well, this is who I was.

I didn't realize I had other options to identify as as well.

And so we want to be careful with the I am And not putting so much of our identity in We'll talk about this in a moment of what we do.

Yeah, so the I am part is How we identify what about the rest of the belief the not good enough or not smart enough Not skinny enough fill in the blank Let's focus on the enough.

No, it's true This in this is so powerful When I talk with people so often, these are things we've never defined.

We're labeling ourselves a certain way, But yet we don't even know what the label actually is because we've never defined it.

So what that means, Amanda, is if we haven't defined where the line is, enough is a moving target.

I think that smart enough is this, and then you meet someone who is smarter than that, and then you moved it and I'm not good enough.

It's terrible when you look at just the fluctuations of definition of beauty.

Basically it's fluctuating so often that you're never pretty enough or with your body image you're never skinny enough or then all of a sudden it changes.

And this happens with style as well, right?

It's kind of interesting as you get older and you're like, wow, it's coming back around.

I'm going to put everything in a box and open the box back up in 20 years and then it'll be back in style.

It's a moving target, which if you think about it, if you're chasing a moving target, you never meet it, which means you're caught in a cycle of anxiety, of disappointment, of depression, and so on.

And I've noticed, especially with perfectionism, if people have issues with perfectionism, they definitely have an issue with that moving target because, and I know some of you can't see what I'm doing, but we make, if I say, this is perfect, well, what do we do when we get got to move my arm when I get close to it I realize wait if I'm getting that close it must not be perfect because perfect is unattainable and so I move perfect up higher and then so I keep moving it and moving it and moving it because in the back of my mind as much as I believe I'm supposed to be perfect, I also believe that it's an unattainable thing.

And perfectionism is very linked to the belief, I'm not good enough.

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Series

The Brain People Podcast 2026

Rethinking Your Worth

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Burning or Burnt Out?

05 Burn Your Bridges

59m

Never Enough

50m

Weed and Seed

1h 20m

InVerse, 3rd Quarter 2022: The Sabbath

06 Sabbath Sanctification

27m

The Great Mind Controversy

04 Redeeming the Time

1h

Workshop: Surrendering Our Addictions

Understanding Addictions

1h 21m

Soul Thirst: Going Deeper with God

Sword or Sawdust

1h

Plenary

Sabbath School Q&A Panel

57m

Sound Doctrine