Today was one of those days. I got up early, worked, and finished a big package – the social media campaign for the dementia network. I was done by 11:30.

Afterwards, the weekly market with a friend, then to the sea, hammock, dogs, my mouse in the water, playing, dozing. Eating ice cream, reading in the evening sun on the meadow.

Now I'm lying on the sofa, watching Elementary. And even though I know days like this are necessary, there's this feeling: I haven't done enough.

When knowledge and emotion diverge.

The absurd thing is, I can explain it to myself. I know I've been productive, not just today but all week. I know rest is important. I know this day was good.

And at the same time, it doesn't feel like it. More like someone inside is saying: This doesn't count. And that brings me to a question that's been on my mind for a while:

When is enough, really? What would have needed to happen today to feel like enough? Another concept, another post, another two hours „productively spent“? And even if I had done that - would it have been enough, or would the goalpost have simply moved again?

A feeling many know

I get the impression that this feeling isn't an individual one. This quiet, and sometimes very loud, feeling of not being enough or not doing enough, I encounter it constantly – in conversations, in organizations, in leadership contexts.

And what's noticeable is: It doesn't just appear on chaotic, overwhelming days, but also on those that are actually good. That's what makes it so hard to grasp. Because it feels like the truth, even though it might rather be a hint.

3. Shifting Standards

A hint about what? Perhaps about how the standards we measure ourselves by are no longer our own. That we are operating within logics where value is quickly tied to visible performance and „more“ is almost automatically considered better than „enough.“.

Then it would actually be consistent that a day like this is not enough. Not because it is objectively too little, but because the benchmark against which it is measured is hardly attainable. And because this benchmark is constantly moving.

4. Why „doing even more“ isn't the solution

The obvious reaction would be to do something else. Open the laptop again, get another task done, at least something „meaningful.“ But that rarely seems to change this feeling in the long run. Quite the opposite: It confirms the logic that it's never enough. And thereby stabilizes the very pattern that so many suffer from.

5. Another look at this moment

Perhaps this moment on the couch can be interpreted differently. Not as proof that I am not enough or don't do enough, but as a moment where it becomes clear that a certain demand is not being met.

That an inner image is at work, which has nothing to do with the reality of this day, but is nevertheless effective. And that it makes a difference to notice that.

A Quiet Ending

I'm still lying on the sofa, watching Elementary, and the feeling hasn't quite gone away. But it has shifted a bit. Not because I've done more, but because I'm looking at it differently. And maybe that's exactly a start.