Do you set demanding standards for yourself? If so, a lot likely goes well in your life: You might earn compliments, admiration, or accomplishments. Your high standards and hard work pay off. But privately, you may feel like you’re falling behind, faking it, or different from everybody else. In short, you may look like you’re hitting it out of the park, but you feel like you’re striking out. In How to Be Enough, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist and anxiety specialist, charts a flexible, forgiving, and freeing path, all without giving up the excellence your high standards and hard work have gotten you. Listen to an excerpt below.
Ellen Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. She is the author of How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post,BBC News, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Psychology Today, among others. She lives in the Boston area with her family.
