Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

This is a pretty good pod cast about dealing with feeling uncomfortable about not being "good enough." I do identify with the relaxing feeling of saying "I don't need to have the most gold stars" because with the mindset he talks about, which I'm sure lots of people have these days, no amount is enough. Do you agree, or do you think it's good to be endlessly motivated by fear of not being good enough?
Maybe this is selfish, but I would rather have a doctor obsessed with being the best if it made him give me better medical care. There's a reason I'm not a doctor.

I think a better motivation for me is to be better than I was before. Maybe that's just saying the same thing in a different way, but I think that kind of framing matters in cognition.

Regarding games, I know the feeling of wanting to beat my previous score (wooo Katamari). I don't think it's a feeling of not being good enough; I know that my worth isn't determined by my score in a game. But maybe other people feel that they're not a good enough nerd if they don't have good game scores? (I only listened to the first few minutes of the podcast.)

But everything has to have limits. There's a difference between a driving desire to be better at something; take for example, star athletes. They push thier bodies to the limit, and don't accept the pain it brings. They just keep pushing. But it isn't because they are worried they aren't "good enough." That feeling can actually be paralyzing to the point where it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

The times in my life where I've been most motivated, and produced my best work, have come from internal drives, not external ones. I don't strive to be better at something because someone else is better, but because I know I can be better.

And when all is said and done, we have to quote Cool Runnings. "A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

It's true that you can accomplish if you're driven by the fear or belief that you're not good enough. However, you'll never be able to enjoy those accomplishments because you'll always be telling yourself it wasn't enough.

The point about getting better medical care if your doctor is obsessed with being the best is an interesting one, and I agree that there could be tangible benefits to others if someone was driven to work or study harder because they felt that what they did was never enough. However, I've also seen a lot of negative side effects coming from this sort of mentality, such as neglecting your family, your friends, or your health because you're so focused on your work, actively treating others badly because you're threatened by competition, and (as mentioned above), never allowing yourself to be happy with who you are or where you are in life. I believe that these negative effects outweigh the positive ones, on the whole.