Enough Already:Reclaiming Your Worth in Christ–Not Achievement
“God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
Of all the ways the Devil tries to destroy our souls, one is especially devious for high-achieving, perfectionist women like me: the lie that our worth depends on how much we accomplish and how much we have to show for our time. I bought that lie for as long as I can remember.
Maybe it’s because I wasn’t raised Catholic and was that much more indoctrinated by society’s “success” propaganda, but I don’t think so. I’ve met numerous faith-filled women who wrestle as I do, plagued by the horrifying fear of never being good enough. Every piece of praise we receive, every accolade we earn, validates our existence. Just as we craved the, “Wow, good job!” of our parents when displaying scribbled drawings as little girls, so we desire to make God and our families happy through every word and deed as adults. Conversely, every hint of insufficiency, and of course every sin, throws our whole life into question. “How could you?!?! You’re worthless,” the Evil One hisses at the slightest mistake.
“I’ll do better!” we plead.
The line between who we are and what we produce is fuzzy at best, absent at worst. It doesn’t help that we’re most known for our performative roles (e.g., motherhood, career), promoted for our productivity (e.g., hours clocked, revenue generated, activities involved in), and evaluated by our outcomes (e.g., home organization, punctuality, kids’ behavior). Even when others aren’t watching, we never stop judging ourselves.
Cognitively, we know our worth is innate, unchanging, and priceless simply because we are daughters of God. But subconsciously, we struggle to believe it. How can we “be” enough when everything in the world tells us we have to “do” more?
Wired to Perform
Neuroscience confirms that brains like ours have been wired to believe we always have to be doing. We literally don’t know how to, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:11). Our nervous system only feels safe when we’re busy. Not doing anything is as threatening to us as a saber-toothed tiger. Stillness immediately throws us into a stress response state which we remedy through fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or fix behaviors that often sabotage our productivity and perpetuate the vicious cycle of not-enoughness.
Instead of taking comfort in our faith, many Bible verses feel, to us, like even more immense pressure to “get it right.” We’re all too aware there is not only the here and now but eternity at stake. How deeply we aspire to stand before the Lord and hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy” (Matthew 25:21). Heaven forbid we arrive before Him and are told, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23), or “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).
Oh how the Devil capitalizes on it by twisting Holy Scripture in our minds! We’re terrified of being the servant who buried his talent.
I must do something that produces a great return on God’s investment in my unique gifts and abilities.
Instead of enjoying our blessings, we bear the weight of knowing, “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” (Luke 1:48).
I’ve been given so much; I must give back that much more.
And the stronger our faith, the more we’re reminded that, “So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).
I must have more works to show!
When we can’t perform up to our exceptionally high standards, we feel helpless and hence hopeless. We default to approaching salvation as we do our miles-long to-do list.
Just tell me what boxes to check and I will!
We pray our record will speak for itself, yet forget the most essential truth of all: Heaven isn’t ours to earn – it’s Jesus’s loving and merciful sacrifice to accept. Nothing we do will ever be enough, no matter how hard we try. Only Jesus could pay the price.
Freedom from Pressure
Our real work, then, isn’t about trying or doing. It’s about receiving. We have nothing to prove – least of all our worth – because, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
It’s time to call out the Devil’s deception. Instead of the prideful desire to prove our worth, we’re invited to humbly internalize that, “Man’s worth is inherent because we are made in the image and likeness of God” (Catechism 1700). As Pope Saint John Paul II underscored in his May 1991 Encyclical, Centesimus Annus, No. 11: “In effect, beyond the rights which man acquires by his own work, there exist rights which do not correspond to any work he performs, but which flow from his essential dignity as a person.”
May these words soothe your soul as they do mine. For any other recovering perfectionist workaholics like me, I pray we find freedom and fulfillment in the realization that our dignity rests solely in who we are, never in what we do.
I expect the internal struggle will remain a lifelong thorn in my side, but nunc coepi (now I have begun):Every day we begin again in our endeavor to, as St. Francis de Sales says, “Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.”
Amber Curtis, PhD is a Certified Life Coach, behavioral science professor, and Catholic mom of four. After getting suicidal from the stress of keeping up with her high-pressure job while raising young kids, she’s on a mission to make sure no other mom ever burns out like she did. She shares neuroscience-backed strategies to work from peace–not pressure–at solutionsforsimplicity.com and the More Time for Mom podcast.