You Can Never Do Enough. It’s Time to Stop Trying.

Enough is one of the most dangerous words in a working mom’s vocabulary.  When is the last time you heard a fellow working mom say, “Oh, I totally did enough work on that project” or “I spent enough meaningful time with my kids last weekend”? Pretty much never. Instead, the word “enough” is most likely to crop up to express a perceived inadequacy or failure, as in “I didn’t prepare enough for that presentation,” or “I didn’t do enough to help my child in that situation.”

I know this because I do it nearly every day. If there is a problem at home or at work, I single-handedly accept responsibility for it and start blaming myself for not doing “enough.” If my son didn’t do well on a math test, I beat myself up for not having studied enough with him. During the pandemic, when my kids had way too much screen time, I started blaming myself for not doing enough to get them more physically active. At work, especially since I have just started a new job, I constantly worry that I have not done enough to prepare for meetings, or that I didn’t do enough background reading, or that I do not know enough to contribute meaningfully to meetings or strategic discussions. The worst part is that the more time I put in at work to counter those feelings of not doing enough, the more I take away from myself and my family, unleashing a whole new set of worries about not doing enough. 

Enough is a word of self-abuse that reinforces the guilt that working mothers feel at work and at home. Despite mountains of evidence that shows working moms are among the most productive employees, there is a perception that because of our work, we aren’t giving our children enough time and attention, and conversely, that because of our family and/or caregiving responsibilities, we aren’t giving enough time and attention to work. And that is why it has become the default word we use to express our frustration and guilt about the fact that there isn’t “enough” time.

It’s time to banish the word “enough” from your vocabulary, at work and at home. The word isn’t doing you any favors, and it is creating unrealistic and unsustainable perceptions of what is humanly possible. When we use the word to describe a perceived shortfall, we are performing a retrospective, imagining what the world would have been like if we had only done “enough.” But do we actually know that for a fact? Extra effort might have been wasted, or it might have been fruitless. But the word enough takes those extraneous variables that are out of our control and puts them squarely on our plate, reinforcing the superhero idea that one individual can overcome any obstacle, if only she works hard enough. 

So how can you get out of the “enough” trap? Here are three ways to think differently about yourself, your work, and your life to fight back against the enough trap:

1. Stop being a superhero. As I’ve mentioned previously, working mothers are often praised for being “superheros” when they go above and beyond, but the superhero mentality creates unrealistic expectations for what we can reasonably accomplish . . . and our level of responsibility for outcomes. You are not the only responsible party when situations, whether at home or at work, do not go as planned. You don’t take all the credit when things go well, so there is no need to internalize the blame when they don’t. 

2. Develop concrete goals. The problem with the word “enough” is that it is not well-defined. There is no specific quantity of time, at work or at home, that we can definitively say is “enough.” To avoid Monday morning quarterbacking in your life, evaluate your progress in terms of concrete variables. For instance, what does spending quality time with your children mean to you? Does it mean doing one family activity per weekend? Does it mean spending 30 minutes reading with them every night?  Whatever it looks like to you, take it from the abstract to the concrete so you can evaluate yourself against an actual, rather than a perceived standard. You might even find that you are doing better than you think.

3. Step away. Are there any predictable patterns in your feelings of inadequacy? Do you experience them after particularly challenging days? The best thing you can do for yourself is to recognize those patterns and take action to change your routine. Tuesdays happen to be the most stressful day of the week for me, and the day when I feel like I will never be able to do enough. My first response to these feelings was to sit at my desk and keep working until I felt like I had done enough. Those feelings never came, and I am starting to realize that they never will. Now I take a different approach. I know that Tuesdays set off a cycle of self-doubt, so I go roller-skating with my son on Tuesday evening to help me regain my perspective.

The sooner you step away from the trap of enough, the sooner you will be able to embrace what really matters for you at home and at work.


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