Amigos
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    Anonymous Story2 min read

    No matter what I do I feel like I'm always letting someone down

    I don't know when it started but at some point I became the person who is always falling short of something. Not in one area. In everything. My parents want more from my grades. My friends feel like I'm not present enough. My coach thinks I'm not putting in enough effort. My teachers think I'm capable of more. Everyone has a version of me in their head that I can't seem to reach and I'm exhausted from trying. The worst part is I'm actually trying. I'm not coasting. I'm not being lazy. I'm genuinely doing my best and it still doesn't feel like enough for anyone including myself. I started thinking about where this feeling was actually coming from. How much of it was real feedback from people in my life and how much of it was a story I'd been telling myself so long I'd stopped questioning it. I also thought about whose expectations I was actually living for. I'd been carrying so many different versions of what I was supposed to be that I couldn't remember the last time I'd asked myself what I actually wanted. I realized I'd been measuring myself entirely by other people's reactions. When someone seemed disappointed I took it as evidence that I'd failed. But nobody can meet every expectation from every direction all the time. I'd been holding myself to a standard that didn't exist and punishing myself every time I fell short of something impossible. We agreed the best next step was to pick one relationship where the disappointment felt loudest and get specific about whether the expectation was actually real or something I'd assumed. Not a big confrontation. Just getting honest with myself about whether I was actually falling short or whether I'd been so primed to feel like I was disappointing people that I was finding evidence for it everywhere. That felt like a small enough place to start without overhauling everything at once.

    Amigos’ Advice

    • Feeling like you disappoint everyone is often more about your own expectations than anyone else's
    • You can't meet every version of yourself that everyone else has in their head simultaneously
    • There's a difference between real feedback and a story you've been telling yourself for so long it feels true
    • Trying your best and still feeling like it's not enough is one of the most exhausting places to be
    • Figuring out whose expectations actually matter to you is more useful than trying to meet all of them
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