The "Not Good Enough" Lie

How Lack-Stories Keep Smart, Capable People Miserable

Anna Katharina Schaffner

This article was originally published on Psychology Today on 13 January 2026.

Many of us believe that we need more knowledge, better frameworks, new systems and sharper concepts in order to be able finally to transform ourselves into the people we truly want to be. Because we long for sustainable, deep change, we always look for the latest productivity hacks, personal development trends, and therapy buzz words, in the hope that they will finally offer us the key to mastery in our inner house.

And it is true that self-knowledge and insights into our own patterns and their origins are the prerequisite for any growth and learning. It is also true that new frameworks and perspectives can be powerful aids for our inner sense-making, and that diagnoses can make us feel heard, seen, and less alone.

But all solution-oriented therapy and coaching interventions, and clinical hypnotherapy approaches, assume something that seems paradoxical: they don’t cast us as broken, in need of fixing. They are based on the firm belief that we already know all that we need to know, and have all the skills and capabilities we need, in order to thrive.

And this firm belief in our own fundamental self-efficacy – that we are already equipped, already capable, already knowing – is also deeply anchored in ancient wisdom traditions and the stories we have been telling across culture and across ages.

A The Wizard of Oz is a powerful example. It directly challenges one of the toxic self-story scripts I discuss in my new book The Story Solution: Change Your Toxic Self-Stories and Thrive. It’s the lack story. When we tell ourselves stories of lack, we pin our unhappiness and stuckness on a quality or skill we think we are lacking. We tell ourselves that we are sorely undersupplied in this resource, and that everybody else around us has it in abundance. We firmly believe that, if only we had more of x – intelligence, beauty, confidence – we could finally be happy.

Lack-stories are compelling because they offer a deceptively neat explanation for suffering. If I am stuck, exhausted, or unfulfilled, it must be because I am missing something essential: eloquence, social ease, brilliance, thinness, charisma, resilience. This narrative promises hope through acquisition – another qualification, insight, training, or skill. But psychologically, it is a trap, establishing a toxic ‘if…then’ scenario. The lack-story externalises agency and postpones aliveness. It tells us that flourishing is conditional, always one skill or insight away. In doing so, it quietly erodes self-efficacy and reinforces chronic dissatisfaction. The cruel irony is this: the more intelligent, reflective, and self-analytical we are, the more convincing – and corrosive – our lack-stories tend to become.

Lack-stories thrive on distorted comparison. We do not compare ourselves to realistic peers, but to outliers: TED speakers, charismatic narcissists, beautiful actors, models of superhuman productivity. These comparisons are not accidental; they are strategies the mind uses to confirm our deficiency. By focusing on extreme examples, we construct a rigged internal courtroom in which we are always found guilty of “not enough.” Meanwhile, because we dislike cognitive dissonance, evidence to the contrary – our competence, creativity, kindness, endurance – barely registers. The result is a narrowing of attention that keeps us small, anxious, and perpetually striving. When calamitous comparison becomes identity-shaping, it no longer motivates growth but paralyses it.

You will recall the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. They accompany Dorothy on her quest to find the legendary Wizard of Oz. Each of them has a key desire that they hope the Wizard will fulfil. The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, the Scarecrow a brain. Dorothy simply wants to find a way back home to be with her loved ones. After many trials and tribulations, when the four friends finally find the Wizard, they discover that he is nothing but a charlatan. But the Wizard teaches them a very important lesson nevertheless: he shows them that they already possess what they thought they were lacking. They just couldn’t see it because they were trapped in their negative self-stories.

The Tin Man, who thinks of himself quite literally as heartless, is capable of great empathy and deep emotions. He is profoundly loving. The Lion, who is convinced he is a miserable coward, is indeed a tad scared of the less important things in life but is also the most courageous of them all, prepared to sacrifice himself for his friends. As for the Scarecrow, he believes himself to be an empty-headed fool: he tells himself the ‘I’m stupid’ story. And yet the Wizard helps him to see that he was the brains of the operation throughout, always coming up with ingenious solutions to their many challenges. Dorothy, finally, thought she was lost for good in a foreign land. And yet she had the means to get home on her own two feet from the very start. She was never a helpless victim. She just had to learn how to deploy her ruby slippers.

What might happen if we assumed that we already possess what we most want? That we lack nothing, and that we are good enough as we are? What would be possible, and what would we do with our gifts?

The poet Marianne Williamson puts a smart spin on our stories of lack, inviting us radically to shift our perspective. She writes that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but that, in fact, we are powerful beyond measure. We are afraid of our light, not our darkness. All solution-focused psychological interventions assume just this: we already know what we need to know, and we already have all the resources we need inside us. We just need to learn how to activate them and furnish ourselves with more helpful stories.

Images: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS