Exhaustion Isn’t a Personal Failure

More than 20 years ago, I got caught in a pattern where work consumed everything. Even though I owned my own business and in theory, controlled my own schedule, I worked weekends, skipped meals and neglected my social life. I'd started the business to escape working on someone else's terms but here I was, driving myself harder than any job ever had.

Nobody was forcing this. I genuinely believed I had to prove my worth through succeeding, which meant working hard. And I know plenty of others feel the same pressure.

This belief—having to prove worth through effort—is a defining feature of Never Enough Culture.

Being “on” all the time and constantly working might be viewed as poor time management. But it goes deeper than that. We're surrounded by messages telling us we're not enough—through social media, advertising and the way success gets portrayed.

We’re told, either implicitly or outright, the path to being worthy lies in working harder and harder so we can achieve that worthiness. We measure ourselves against unrealistic standards and convince ourselves that our value depends on what we achieve, particularly through work.

For those of us with high-capacity, multiple passions or a genuine drive to care for others, this pressure multiplies. We see all the ways we could contribute, all the interests we could explore and feel we're failing if we're not doing everything. The caring impulse that moves us becomes another source of exhaustion when we believe we have to respond to every need, pursue every interest or we're somehow wasting our gifts.

Good Enough isn’t about caring less. It’s about caring so that we’re not consumed by it.

Despite years of teaching somatics and awareness, it took a chronic illness diagnosis to force a change in how I treated myself. This was the moment a different way began to take shape, even before it had a name. I couldn’t push myself to the limit as I had before. Lying down while my mind zoomed around wasn’t healing or restful. What made a real difference though, was learning to be kind to myself.

Self-kindness didn't mean abandoning my interests or my care for others. It meant honoring which ones needed attention right now. Raising my child, doing what was absolutely essential in my business and making sure I got rest so my body, mind and spirit could recover allowed me to use my precious time and energy well. Before this, I treated myself as an endless resource that could be mined over and over, and that didn’t deserve to be replenished. Self-kindness allowed me to become sensitive enough to my needs so I could attend to them. 

Society emphasizes hustle and productivity, often leading us down a path of aggressive striving and insensitivity. I saw that in order to be healthy, I’d have to choose a countercultural perspective. Learning to be kind opened up true growth—not the sort that feeds the feeling of never being enough but the capacity to care.

Caring for myself has led to more intentional care for my loved ones, the communities to which I belong and the world in general. As an outcome of adopting self-kindness and self-compassion as a guiding principle, I’ve learned to say no to exhausting demands. 

This is something we return to throughout The Good Enough Guide.

Erica Ando, co-author
The Good Enough Guide, a guided journal & manifesto