Dr. Kevin Leman - Why Your Best Is Good Enough

1988, 2007 by Kevin Leman

Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2010

Ebook corrections 10.23.2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1256-6

Previously published in 1988 under the title Measuring Up and in 1997 under the title When Your Best Is Not Good Enough

To
my son,
Kevin Anderson Leman II

Your humor, sensitivity, and concern for others
make us proud to be your mom and dad.
Mom and I love you very much.

Contents

After writing The Birth Order Book in 1985, I got an avalanche of responses to one specific part of that bestselling book. I talked about a syndrome that I observed in people over and over again: perfectionism.

Perhaps you know these people. They start a lot of projects and dont finish them. Their motto is, If I can put it off for a day (or a year) or two, all the better. If you look on their desks at their places of work, youll see signs of the defeated perfectionistthey live in piles. If you ask these people to find something on their cluttered desks, theyll find it with ease. If you want to send them into a tizzy, move their piles. There is order within the disorder.

But these personality types have a unique way of defeating themselves. Lets look at a student who fits the profile. This young person needs to study for a final exam. He tells himself throughout the day that he is going to study all night. Evening arrives, and he sits down to bury himself in his books, only to find himself studying for just a few minutes before seeing that shirt or that jacket that needs to be hung up across the room. Whats the probability of him returning to his studies? Zero? Nada? Zilch? Bingo! You should have been a psychologist. This syndrome is produced in people who are brought up with at least one critical-eyed parent. That parent can spot a flaw at forty paces. And these personalities protect themselves from criticism by simply not completing tasks and not performing up to their abilities.

So, because of the overwhelming response, I wrote the book Why Your Best Is Good Enough. Its intended to help those afflicted with this syndrome to remove the high-jump bar of life that seems to stymie them at every turn.

My hope is that it will help you.

Why Cant I Measure Up?

Youre bound to know the feeling.

Maybe it only comes around at family reunions, when you see your younger brother, Fred, again. There he istan, handsome, athleticand a tremendous success in the world of business.

Most of the time youre pretty self-confident. Youre doing okay in the world, and your friends seem to like and respect you.

But then, there he isand all of a sudden you feel like youre six years old again, with torn pants and a dirty face. You suddenly realize that whatever youve done with your life, it hasnt been enough. No matter how much you know, it isnt as much as he knows.

No, sir. You couldnt measure up to this magnificent brother when you were a kidand youre still standing in his shadow. You feel so... so... inadequate. At any minute hes bound to come up and tell you that you have spinach stuck between your teeth, or that your flys open. Maybe youd better stay over here, in the corner.

If it isnt your brother who brings out these feelings in you, perhaps its somebody like her... Mary Johnson, who still looks terrific after all these years.

You had to practically starve yourself for six weeks to get down to a size 12 for your high school reunion. And then she shows up wearing a stunning size 5! And just look at that figure!

If situations such as these are the only times you feel like something of a failure, then you can consider yourself very lucky. Youve developed a pretty healthy self-image.

Many peopleno matter what they may say or how they may conduct themselvesreally dont feel very good about themselves. They feel inadequate, like failures and rejects much of the time. And theyre not. Theyre ordinary, productive citizens, who have just never been able to feel they measure up. They try so hard, but always seem to come up short. Even when they succeed, they feel as if they just got lucky, or that theyve failed.

They dont measure up to their parents expectations, their teachers expectations, or even their own expectations. They always feel as if theyve let somebody down, and in many instances they have become so defeated and weary that they live out their lives in a way that reinforces their opinion of themselves. These people are defeated perfectionists. Defeated because they can never clear what I call the high-jump bar of life.

If they ever do manage to get over it, they quickly raise it up a notch or two so they can never get over it a second time.

In my more than thirty years of private psychological practice Ive talked to thousands of these people, and Ive come to see consistent patterns of thought and actionspatterns that reinforce the I just cant measure up syndrome.

I dont care who you are, or what has happened in your life up to this point. You are not a failure, and you do not have to live your life as one.

This book is being written to help everyone who has ever struggled with feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy, no matter how strong and consistent or weak and sporadic those feelings may be. I want to help you break the cycle of failure and rejection. I want to teach parents how to instill a positive self-image in their children. And I want to help you understand how you got caught in this vicious cycle in the first place. The defeated perfectionist can be set free from discouragement and failure, and Ill show you how.

Now, Ive already told you that Im a psychologist, and that Ive counseled thousands of people over the past thirty years. But dont think for a moment that Im going to approach the subject with the cold and detached eye of a clinician. Im not going to be writing from some lofty ivory tower and use only words you might find in Readers Digest under It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power.

I havent always been a psychologist, and I wasnt born with a doctorate degree. When I write about the feeling of not being able to measure up, believe me, I know what Im talking about.

For instance, when you hear the word undistinguished you might as well think of my high school career. I graduated a gimme putt from the bottom of my class. I was in a reading group in elementary school where one kid ate paste and two others continually smiled for no apparent reasons. I was a college dropout who worked for a while as a janitor in a hospital. The head nurse there took my future wife, Sande, aside and told her not to go out with me because it was clear I was never going to amount to anything, and that she was wasting her time with the likes of me. (Ill tell you more about this later.)

And Ill have to admit, at the time that looked like some pretty good advice. (But Im awfully glad Sande didnt take it!)

Take It from One Who Knows

Whats my point? Only that I know what Im talking about not only on the professional level, but on the personal level as well. When youre starting out on a vacation trip, its one thing to look at all the colorful brochures and believe what they say. Its another thing to take the advice of someone who knows where you should stay because hes been there himself. Well... Ive been there!