For me, I have had various moments throughout my life of feeling like there was no way I was good enough. This applied to many different things, including but not limited to: my first marriage, being a teacher, being a mom, being a Christian, and being a friend.

Due to a combination of circumstances and severely low self-esteem, I had major bouts of feeling beyond inadequate. Those were rough times, but I made it through.

I can assure you that at least 90% of the time now, I don’t even question it. Generally, I feel pretty confident about myself in many areas now. And then there are moments where doubt slips in and I flash back to the ugly days of not good enough.

*sigh* I had one of those moments a couple minutes ago, and I am blogging in an attempt to let it go.

You may or may not know that I am in graduate school. I have been working pretty darn hard to make sure I earn top grades. I have developed my own method of taking notes on the readings and power points before class, and then going back through my notes as the professor talks and adding more notes. Most of my classmates tease me about this. It is a lot of work, but I am battling a middle-life brain and trying to do my best to actually learn the information, so that’s what I do.

In spite of this, I got a grade back on something that was not stellar. Yes, it is an A. But until now, I have mostly gotten 100% on pretty much all of my assignments, or at least a high A. Today I got 92, which is an A-.

Go ahead and laugh at me and tell me to shut up. I’ve always pushed myself hard, and my gut reaction to that grade was to start to beat myself up.

But, I stopped.

I stopped myself immediately. I took a deep breath and I decided that 92% on one assignment is good enough. It’s actually more than good enough, it’s great. I don’t need to qualify it, rationalize it, or try to reason with myself as to why it’s not 100%.

The next 3 weeks are going to be intense. We are finishing up this semester and a lot of things are due. We have tests, final projects, and group presentations. I am running on little sleep, less free time, and caffeine.

I am enough. Whatever grades I get after all of this are more than good enough. I am learning a lot and loving every minute of it. THAT is the point of all of this, right? The learning?

So no more checking grades for me. I’ll just wait until the end of the semester. Until then, I am going to keep on keeping on!

I am good enough for me. I am good enough for my kids. I am good enough for my husband. I am good enough for my friends. And I am good enough for Christ.

I’m going to keep telling myself that until it sinks in.