Are you coughing up furballs of shame and inadequacy?
Maybe you’re trying your hardest, but no matter what you do, it doesn’t seem acceptable to another person, to your ability to succeed, or to change your negative feelings about yourself.
Or perhaps you feel deficient or incompetent in some area of your life, but you don’t have the tools or income to improve.
You’re stuck and feel doomed to mediocrity.
Feeling like you aren’t good enough turns your self-esteem to ashes and makes you feel like giving up.
But if it’s any consolation, most of us feel this way at times.
And most of us don’t realize we aren’t the best arbiters of what “good enough” really is.
Once you read through these deep not good enough quotes, you’ll realize how universal your feelings are.
And how they don’t serve you or your desire to move forward in life.
52 Not Good Enough Quotes You’ll Relate To
These “I’m not good enough” quotes may not magically make you feel better, but there are ways to use them to improve your outlook and self-esteem incrementally.
We have a few ideas:
Choose some of your favorites, and repeat them several times a day as affirmations.
Write them on sticky notes, and post them where you can see them often to remind you that you are enough.
Use them as prompts for writing in your journal and working through your feelings of inadequacy.
Use them to provide insight into how you don’t feel good enough and whether these feelings are factually based.
Take them to your therapy appointments as prompts for discussion and healing.
1. “The way you speak of yourself / the way you degrade yourself / into smallness / is abuse.” — Rupi Kaur
2. “I did the best I could, and in some arenas, my best was not good enough.” — Amy Grant
3. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not good enough. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too short, you’re too fat, you’re too thin, you’re too ugly – that’s nonsense.” — Bradley Walsh
4. “There’s not one human being on the planet earth who has never felt, at some point, unaccepted. At some point in our lives, we feel like we’re not good enough, but we have to step back and realize that we are.” — Jussie Smollett
5. “Nothing makes you try harder than to be told that you are not good enough or that you simply do not have the skills.” — Max Aaron
6. “Have patience with all things, But, first of all with yourself.” — Francis de Sales
7. “The only person that deserves a special place in your life is someone that never made you feel like you were an option in theirs.” ― Shannon L. Alder
8. “People will try to label you not good enough, too slow, too old, too many mistakes. You can’t stop negative comments or prevent negative labels, but you can choose to not let them hold you back.” — Joel Osteen
9. “A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.” — Madonna
10. “All I can tell you really is if you get to the point where someone is telling you that you are not great or not good enough, just follow your heart and don’t let anybody crush your dream.” — Patti LaBelle
11. “I don’t do anything I’m not good at.” — Brenna Yovanoff
12. “There’s always a way you can get better. You can never be satisfied. You can never say, ‘That’s good enough’” – Kron Gracie
13. “It’s a lie to think you’re not good enough. It`s a lie to think you’re not worth anything.” – Nick Vujicic
14. “When you’re trying to motivate yourself, appreciate the fact that you’re even thinking about making a change. And as you move forward, allow yourself to be good enough.” – Alice Domar
15. “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” – Marie Curie
Deep Not Enough Quotes
16. “She questioned her own beauty because of him he left scars on her self esteem…” — R.H. Sin
17. “Everywhere I look, someone is telling me, ‘You’re not good enough,’ or, ‘You can’t do this or that.’ You can only hear that so many times before enough is enough.” — Baker Mayfield
18. “Every time I looked in the mirror, it was like, ‘You’re not good enough.’ ‘There’s always someone more popular.’” — Brian Welch
19. “You are not your mistakes: they are what you did, not who you are.” — Lisa Lieberman-Wang
20. “Good is not good enough when better is expected.” — Lou Lamoriello
21. “The purely agitational attitude is not good enough for a detailed consideration of a subject.” — Jawaharlal Nehru
22. “Perfection is shallow, unreal, and fatally uninteresting.” — Anne Lamott
23. “It’s either not good enough and dies altogether, or it develops.” — Ninette de Valois
24. “At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
25. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
26. “You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress, simultaneously.” — Sophia Bush
27. “I’ve always liked to think I could do anything I wished as well as – if not better than – a man. But I wasn’t very good at rally driving.” — Jo Brand
28. “If you don’t like your definition of ‘good enough’, then feel free to change that, but the goal before shipping is merely that. Not perfect.” – Seth Godin
29. “All you can do is all you can do… If all you can do, is still not good enough, then go do something else.” – Bradford Winters
30. “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” – Louise Hay
Not Good Enough for Him Quotes
31. “Never think that you’re not good enough. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.” — Anthony Trollope
32. “Sometimes you might feel like you’re not good enough or unique enough, but everyone is! Everyone has different personalities.” — Astrid S
33. “Revolutionary moments attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.” — George Bernard Shaw
34. “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” — Maya Angelou
35. “Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not good enough, smart enough or cool enough. Do your own thing.” – Benji Madden
36. “Better is not good enough; the best is yet to come!” – T.B Joshua
37. “Good enough is never good enough.” – Alfred Bertram Guthrie
38. “Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.” – Gary Oldman
39. “You may never be good enough for some people, but you will always be the best for those who deserve you.” – Anonymous
40. “Successful improvisation is mostly a matter of taking your thoughts out of the equation, because thinking can keep the magic from happening. You have to be open enough to let the magic happen, instead of trying to make it happen because magic is never made.” – Jimmy Herring
41. “It’s never simple.” Avery slid an arm around Hope’s waist. “It shouldn’t be. Because being with someone should matter enough to be at least a little bit complicated.” — Nora Roberts
42. “Nothing will knock you down quicker than offering the best of yourself to someone and it still not being good enough.” — M.W Poetry
43. “I felt so much, that I started to feel nothing.” — Unknown
44. “When people tell you’re not good enough, don’t mind them.” — Toni Gonzaga
45. “Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.” — Christian Nestell Bovee
46. “When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.” — Jodi Picoult
47. “Sometimes your best isn’t good enough.” — Kersten Hamilton
48. “She wondered why they didn’t understand that their true selfs were good enough, and if they weren’t, then the someones they weren’t good enough for, were really the ones not good enough.” — Lynsay Sands
49. “Even though you have pain in your legs, you can do it. Even though your practice is not good enough, you can do it.” — Shunryu Suzuki
50. “She questioned her own beauty because of him he left scars on her self-esteem…” — r.h. Sin
51. “Sweetheart, the right guy will make you a priority. If you find yourself feeling like you’re not good enough, it’s because he’s not good enough.” — Steve Maraboli
Here’s a secret you need to know: you’re only as “good” as you believe yourself to be. Rather than struggling against your feelings of inadequacy, start moving toward feelings of self-acceptance and love.
Focus on gratitude, small achievements, and forgiveness, and you’ll find “good enough” in everything you do.
