What Is "Good Enough" For You? Learning to Define Your Own Standards

One of the most common struggles I see in therapy, particularly with clients who experienced attachment trauma, is the question: "How do I know what's good enough?" This seemingly simple question touches something profound—the difficulty of developing your own internal compass for evaluating your life, relationships, accomplishments, and self-worth when your early experiences didn't provide a reliable foundation for knowing what you deserve or what's reasonable to expect.

If you grew up with inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive caregivers, you may have learned to accept crumbs as banquets, to see mistreatment as normal, to believe that your needs are excessive, or conversely, to hold everyone (including yourself) to impossibly high standards that no human could meet. You may genuinely not know what "good enough" looks like in relationships, work, parenting, or self-care because you never experienced healthy models.

This confusion isn't a personal failing—it's an understandable result of growing up without secure attachment. But it's also something that can change. Learning to define "good enough" for yourself, in a way that honours your genuine needs and reality, is a crucial part of healing from attachment trauma.

The Concept of "Good Enough"

The phrase "good enough" comes from pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, who coined the term "good enough mother" to describe parenting that's adequate—not perfect, but sufficiently attuned, responsive, and caring to support healthy development.

Winnicott recognized that perfection isn't necessary or even desirable. Children don't need perfect parents; they need parents who are mostly attuned, who repair ruptures, who meet their needs adequately most of the time. This "good enough" parenting allows children to develop resilience, to learn that mistakes can be repaired, and to integrate the reality that people can be both imperfect and still fundamentally good.

This concept extends beyond parenting to all areas of life:

• Good enough relationships (not perfect, but healthy and supportive)

• Good enough work performance (competent and responsible, not flawless)

• Good enough self-care (adequate attention to needs, not optimal optimization)

• Good enough parenting (attuned and caring, not without mistakes)

• Good enough healing (meaningful progress, not complete transformation)

The challenge is that "good enough" is contextual, nuanced, and requires an internal sense of what you need and deserve—something attachment trauma can profoundly disrupt.

How Attachment Trauma Distorts "Good Enough"

Attachment trauma creates specific distortions in how we evaluate what's acceptable, desirable, or sufficient.

When "Good Enough" Becomes "Too Much to Ask"

Many people with attachment trauma learned that their basic needs were burdensome, excessive, or shameful. This creates a pattern of:

Settling for less than healthy minimum standards:

• Accepting relationships where you're consistently disrespected or neglected

• Believing that basic consideration or kindness is "special treatment"

• Feeling grateful for the absence of abuse rather than expecting positive care

• Thinking that asking for your needs to be met is demanding or high-maintenance

Minimizing your own needs:

• "I don't need that much"

• "Other people have it worse"

• "I'm fine, really"

• "It's not that important"

Inability to recognize harm: When harm was normalized in childhood, you may not register current harm as problematic. What others would find unacceptable (being yelled at, having boundaries violated, being consistently let down) may seem normal or even good by comparison to your early experiences.

Example: A client stayed in a relationship where her partner regularly "forgot" plans with her, claiming he was "busy" with work or friends. She felt she should be more understanding because "at least he doesn't hit me or cheat on me," and her parents had modeled a relationship with open contempt. Her standard for "good enough" was "better than my parents," which was a devastatingly low bar.

When "Good Enough" Becomes "Never Enough"

Conversely, some people with attachment trauma develop impossibly high standards as a protection against ever being hurt or disappointed again:

Perfectionism as armour:

• If I'm perfect, I won't be rejected/abandoned/criticized

• If everything is perfect, I'll finally be safe/loved/valued

• If I never make mistakes, I won't be shamed or punished

All-or-nothing thinking:

• Relationships must be perfect or they're worthless

• You must be perfect or you're a failure

• Others must meet all your needs perfectly or they've failed you

• Any flaw means the whole thing is ruined

Hypervigilance for imperfection: Scanning constantly for signs that someone will hurt you, that a situation will go wrong, or that you're failing, leading to finding "evidence" everywhere and rejecting anything that isn't flawless.

Protection through rejection: Rejecting people, opportunities, or experiences before they can reject or disappoint you, using "not good enough" as a shield against vulnerability.

Example: A client sabotaged every relationship at the first sign of conflict or imperfection, interpreting normal human mistakes as evidence that the person would inevitably hurt him deeply. His standard for "good enough" was "perfect and flawless," which is impossible—leaving him perpetually alone and protected but deeply lonely.

When "Good Enough" Is Completely Unknown

Some people with attachment trauma simply don't know what healthy standards look like because they never experienced them:

No internal reference point:

• Never experienced healthy conflict resolution, so don't know what that looks like

• Never had boundaries modeled, so don't know what reasonable boundaries are

• Never had needs met consistently, so don't know what adequate responsiveness feels like

• Never experienced repair after rupture, so don't know relationships can recover from conflict

Confusion about what's normal:

• "Is it normal for partners to yell at each other regularly?"

• "Should I feel anxious all the time in relationships?"

• "Is it reasonable to expect my partner to remember important things about me?"

• "Should I have to constantly prove myself to keep someone's love?"

Example: A client asked, earnestly, whether it was reasonable to expect her partner to comfort her when she was upset, or if that was "asking too much." She genuinely didn't know because no one had ever comforted her consistently growing up—she had no template for what emotional support looked like.

Interpersonal Issues That Interfere with "Good Enough"

Our relationships with others profoundly shape our ability to recognize and accept "good enough."

Reenacting Familiar Patterns

We're drawn to what's familiar, even when it's harmful. This means people with attachment trauma often unconsciously recreate their original attachment dynamics:

Choosing familiar over healthy:

• Feeling attracted to emotionally unavailable people because that's what love felt like in childhood

• Feeling uncomfortable with consistent kindness because it's unfamiliar

• Creating conflict or drama because calm feels foreign and anxiety-provoking

• Pushing away secure people because they don't activate the familiar attachment system

The "boring" partner problem: Many people with attachment trauma feel less attracted to stable, consistent, emotionally available partners. These partners feel "boring" or like there's "no chemistry"—not because they're actually boring, but because they don't activate the anxious, pursuing, proving-yourself dynamic that feels like love.

What feels like "chemistry" may actually be anxiety, hypervigilance, and activated attachment wounds. Learning to recognize secure attachment as desirable (even when it doesn't create the familiar intensity) is part of healing.

Difficulty Trusting Positive Experiences

When positive experiences weren't reliable in childhood, they can feel threatening rather than comforting:

Waiting for the other shoe to drop:

• Inability to relax into good experiences because you're anticipating when they'll end or turn bad

• Questioning others' motives when they're kind

• Creating tests or obstacles to "prove" whether someone really cares

• Sabotaging good situations because the anxiety of waiting for them to go bad is unbearable

Distrust of consistently good treatment:

• "What do they want from me?"

• "This is too good to be true"

• "They'll see the real me and leave"

• "Nobody is this nice without an ulterior motive"

This makes it difficult to recognize and accept genuinely good relationships or situations because your nervous system is signalling danger rather than safety.

People-Pleasing and External Validation

Without internal standards, you may rely entirely on external validation to know if you're doing "enough":

Shape-shifting to meet others' expectations:

• Constantly adjusting to what you think others want

• No consistent sense of self across relationships

• Exhaustion from performing rather than being

• Resentment at never getting your own needs met

Approval-seeking as safety: If keeping others happy kept you safer in childhood, you may believe your worth and safety still depend on others' approval, making it impossible to develop internal standards that might conflict with others' preferences.

Inability to disappoint: If disappointing caregivers led to withdrawal, rage, or punishment, you may be unable to tolerate others' disappointment even when your own needs require it.

Difficulty with Reciprocity

Healthy relationships involve give and take, but attachment trauma can create imbalanced patterns:

Over-giving:

• Doing everything for others while accepting nothing in return

• Believing you must earn love through service

• Feeling uncomfortable receiving care or support

• Measuring your worth by what you provide to others

Under-receiving:

• Deflecting compliments or care

• Feeling unworthy of others' efforts

• Assuming people's kindness is pity rather than genuine care

• Rejecting support because vulnerability feels dangerous

Over-receiving:

• Demanding perfect attunement without offering it in return

• Experiencing others as extensions of yourself rather than separate people

• Rage when needs aren't met instantly or perfectly

• Difficulty recognizing others' legitimate needs as valid

Healthy "good enough" requires balance—both people contributing, both people receiving, mutual care and consideration.

Conflict Avoidance or Conflict Addiction

Attachment trauma often creates distorted relationships with conflict:

Conflict avoidance:

• Believing any conflict means the relationship is doomed

• Avoiding necessary confrontations to maintain false peace

• Accepting unacceptable behavior to avoid conflict

• Never advocating for your needs or boundaries

This makes it impossible to evaluate "good enough" because you're not allowing yourself to address problems that make relationships unhealthy.

Conflict as connection:

• Only feeling close during or after fights

• Creating unnecessary conflict because it's the only form of emotional intensity you know

• Mistaking drama for passion

• Feeling disconnected during peaceful times

This distorts "good enough" by making chaos and instability feel like necessary components of intimacy.

Intrapersonal Issues That Interfere with "Good Enough"

Internal factors also profoundly affect our ability to define adequate standards.

Shame and Internalized Beliefs

Attachment trauma often creates deep shame and beliefs about unworthiness:

Core shame:

• "I am fundamentally flawed/bad/unlovable"

• "Something is wrong with me at my core"

• "I don't deserve good things"

When you believe you're fundamentally unworthy, "good enough" becomes impossible to recognize because you don't believe you deserve even basic decent treatment.

Internalized messages

Beliefs absorbed from early caregivers:

• "You're too much"

• "You're too needy"

• "You're so difficult"

• "No one will ever really love you"

• "You should be grateful for what you get"

These messages become your inner voice, evaluating everything through the lens of your supposed inadequacy.

Difficulty Identifying Needs and Feelings

Recognizing what's "good enough" requires knowing what you need, but attachment trauma often disrupts this awareness:

Alexithymia (difficulty identifying emotions): If emotions weren't safe or validated in childhood, you may have learned to disconnect from them, making it difficult to know how you feel about situations or relationships.

Needs blindness: If needs were shameful or ignored, you may not know what you actually need—in relationships, work, daily life, or from yourself.

Body disconnection: Attachment trauma often involves disconnection from bodily sensations, meaning you miss important signals about what feels good, safe, comfortable, or wrong.

Without this internal information, you can't evaluate whether something is "good enough" because you don't know what you need it to be.

All-or-Nothing Thinking

Trauma often creates rigid, binary thinking that makes "good enough" impossible:

Black and white categories:

• Perfect or worthless

• All good or all bad

• Safe or dangerous

• Acceptable or unacceptable

No middle ground: The nuanced middle space where "good enough" lives doesn't exist in this framework—things are either ideal or unacceptable, with nothing in between.

Fear of gray area: Uncertainty feels dangerous, so you create absolute categories even when reality is complex and contextual.

Perfectionism and Fear of Failure

For many with attachment trauma, perfectionism served as a survival strategy:

If I'm perfect, I'll be:

• Loved

• Safe

• Valued

• Protected from criticism or rejection

Perfectionism makes "good enough" intolerable:

• Anything less than perfect feels like failure

• "Good enough" seems like giving up or settling

• Accepting limitations feels like weakness

• Imperfection activates deep shame

The exhaustion of constant striving: The perfectionism is unsustainable, leading to cycles of intense effort followed by collapse, burnout, or giving up entirely—all-or-nothing approaches to life that don't allow for sustainable "good enough."

Difficulty with Self-Compassion

Evaluating "good enough" requires some kindness toward yourself, but attachment trauma often creates harsh self-judgment:

Inner critic

An internalized harsh voice (often based on critical caregivers) that attacks you for:

• Making mistakes

• Having needs

• Not being perfect

• Taking care of yourself

• Setting boundaries

• Being human

Self-punishment: Believing you deserve suffering, deprivation, or harsh treatment because of your perceived unworthiness.

Comparison to others: Constantly measuring yourself against others and finding yourself lacking, unable to recognize your own achievements or progress.

Dissociation and Disconnection

Severe attachment trauma often involves dissociation—disconnection from present experience:

Not being present in your life:

• Going through motions without really experiencing

• Feeling like you're watching your life from outside

• Emotional numbness or flatness

• Difficulty remembering experiences

How this affects "good enough": You can't evaluate whether something is adequate for you if you're not present enough to experience it. Dissociation creates a fog where nothing feels quite real or substantial enough to assess.

Worldview Issues That Interfere with "Good Enough"

Beyond interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, our fundamental beliefs about how the world works affect our standards.

The Just World Fallacy (In Reverse)

The just world fallacy is the belief that the world is fair—good things happen to good people, bad things to bad people.

For people with attachment trauma, this often operates in reverse:

"Bad things happened to me, therefore I must be bad": If the world is just, and you experienced neglect, abuse, or abandonment, you must have deserved it somehow. This makes you believe you deserve less than others and that "good enough" for others is "too much" for you.

Difficulty believing you deserve good things: If you're fundamentally bad (as the reverse just-world thinking suggests), then good treatment, success, or happiness must be mistakes that will be corrected.

Hypervigilance for punishment: Waiting for the universe to realize its error and take away anything good in your life.

Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindset

Your beliefs about whether good things are scarce or abundant profoundly affect your standards:

Scarcity mindset:

• Love is rare and must be earned through suffering

• Good relationships are impossible to find

• You should accept whatever you can get because opportunities are limited

• Asking for more means losing what you have

• Other people's gain is your loss

This mindset makes you settle for inadequate relationships, work, or treatment because you believe nothing better is possible.

Conditional abundance: "Good things are abundant for others but not for me" creates a worldview where you can see that healthy relationships, fulfilling work, or satisfying lives exist—just not for you.

Beliefs About Change and Growth

Your beliefs about whether change is possible affect whether you can work toward "good enough":

Fixed vs. growth mindset:

• Fixed: "This is just how I am" or "This is just how relationships are"

• Growth: "I can develop new skills" and "Relationships can improve"

Learned helplessness: If nothing you did as a child improved your situation, you may have learned that effort is futile—making it difficult to work toward better standards because you don't believe change is possible.

Fear of hope: If hoping for better and being disappointed was too painful, you may protect yourself by not hoping at all—accepting inadequate situations to avoid the pain of desiring and not receiving.

Trust in the World

Fundamental beliefs about whether the world is safe or dangerous affect what you're willing to accept:

World as fundamentally unsafe

If you experienced the world as dangerous and people as unreliable, you may:

• Accept controlling relationships as protective

• Believe hypervigilance is necessary for survival

• See relaxing your guard as dangerous naivety

• Interpret kindness as manipulation

World as random and chaotic

If your early environment was unpredictable, you may:

• Believe nothing you do matters (why bother having standards?)

• Feel that trying to create good-enough situations is futile

• Accept chaos as inevitable

• Have difficulty creating or maintaining stability

World as punishing

If you were punished for existing, having needs, or making mistakes, you may:

• Believe you deserve punishment or deprivation

• See any good treatment as temporary or mistaken

• Create self-punishment to maintain familiar dynamics

• Reject "good enough" as more than you deserve

Learning to Define "Good Enough" for Yourself

Given all these obstacles, how do you begin to develop your own internal compass for "good enough"?

Start with Awareness

Notice your current standards:

• What do you currently accept in relationships, work, and life?

• Where do these standards come from? (Family, culture, past experiences?)

• Are your standards serving you or harming you?

• Do you have different standards for yourself than you'd accept for loved ones?

Explore the origins: Understanding where your current standards come from doesn't change them immediately, but it creates space between past learning and present choice.

Identify your patterns:

• Do you tend toward too-low or too-high standards?

• Do different areas of life have different standards? (Maybe high standards for work but very low for relationships?)

• When do your standards become more rigid or more loose?

Build Your Internal Reference Points

Develop interoception (body awareness):

• Notice physical sensations associated with different situations

• Learn to recognize: What does safety feel like in your body? Discomfort? Danger?

• Trust bodily responses as information

Identify your emotions:

• Practice naming feelings beyond "fine," "good," or "bad"

• Notice emotional responses to situations and relationships

• Let feelings be information rather than problems to solve immediately

Connect with your needs:

• What do you actually need (not what you "should" need)?

• What makes you feel cared for, respected, valued?

• What are your non-negotiables versus preferences?

This internal information becomes the foundation for evaluating "good enough."

Learn From Secure Models

Observe healthy relationships:

• How do secure people handle conflict?

• What do healthy boundaries look like?

• How do people with good self-worth accept treatment?

• What does reciprocity look like in practice?

Ask trusted others: When confused about whether something is acceptable, ask someone with healthy patterns: "Is this normal? Would you accept this?" Their perspective can help calibrate your standards.

Therapy as laboratory

The therapeutic relationship itself provides a model of:

• Consistent care despite imperfection

• Repair after rupture

• Being valued for who you are, not what you provide

• Boundaries that protect rather than punish

• "Good enough" therapeutic relationship

Practice Nuanced Thinking

Challenge all-or-nothing patterns:

• "This person isn't perfect, AND they treat me with respect most of the time"

• "I made a mistake, AND I'm still a good person"

• "This situation has problems, AND it has good aspects too"

Embrace both/and:

• "I love my family AND their behavior is sometimes harmful"

• "I'm proud of my work AND it could be better"

• "I deserve basic respect AND I'm not perfect"

Tolerate ambiguity: Not everything needs to be definitively categorized. Some things can remain in the uncertain middle space while you gather more information.

Develop Compassionate Standards

The "good friend" test

Ask yourself, "If a good friend were in this situation, what would I tell them?" Often we can see clearly for others what we can't see for ourselves.

Self-compassion as baseline

Your standards for yourself should include:

• Permission to make mistakes

• Acknowledgment of your efforts

• Recognition of limitations and humanity

• Kindness during struggle

Minimum standards for relationships

Healthy relationships (romantic, friendship, family) should at minimum include:

• Respect for your boundaries

• Basic consideration and kindness

• Honesty (not perfect, but generally truthful)

• Ability to repair after conflict

• Some reciprocity in effort and care

• Feeling safe (emotionally and physically)

• Your growth and wellbeing mattering to them

These aren't high standards—they're basic requirements for healthy connection.

Experiment and Adjust

Try different standards:

• What happens if you expect more? Less?

• What happens if you state a need clearly?

• What happens if you set a boundary?

• What happens if you walk away from something inadequate?

Notice the results: Do people rise to meet higher standards, or do they prove themselves unwilling? Does lowering standards bring relief or more harm? This experimentation provides information.

Adjust as you learn: Your standards don't have to be fixed forever. You can adjust them as you:

• Heal and grow

• Gather more information

• Discover what actually serves you

• Build confidence in your own judgment

Work with Parts

If you have conflicting internal standards, parts work can help:

The part that accepts anything: "What is this part protecting you from? What does it believe will happen if you expect more?"

The part that demands perfection: "What is this part protecting you from? What does it believe will happen if you accept 'good enough'?"

The wise adult part: "What does the part of you that can see clearly (when not activated) know about what you need and deserve?"

Helping these parts communicate and find middle ground can resolve internal conflicts about standards.

Challenge Internalized Messages

Identify the voices: Whose voice says "you're too much" or "you're not enough"? Recognizing these as internalized others rather than truth creates distance.

Develop counter-narratives:

• "I deserve basic respect" (vs. "I should be grateful for any attention")

• "My needs are normal and reasonable" (vs. "I'm too needy")

• "I'm allowed to make mistakes" (vs. "I must be perfect")

• "Good enough is enough" (vs. "Only perfection is acceptable")

Gather evidence: Look for evidence that contradicts the internalized messages. When have you been enough? When have your needs been reasonable? When has someone valued you?

Practice Disappointment Tolerance

Part of "good enough" is accepting that disappointment is inevitable and survivable:

Not everything will be perfect:

• Jobs will have annoying aspects

• Relationships will have conflicts

• People will sometimes let you down

• You will sometimes fall short of your own ideals

Disappointment isn't catastrophe: Building tolerance for disappointment allows you to accept "good enough" without it feeling like settling or giving up.

Repair is possible: Learning that mistakes can be repaired (and experiencing this in therapy and relationships) helps you accept imperfection in yourself and others.

"Good Enough" in Specific Contexts

Good Enough Relationships

A good enough romantic relationship includes:

• Feeling respected and valued most of the time

• Conflicts that get resolved (not perfectly, but adequately)

• Feeling safe to be yourself

• Basic needs for connection, communication, and affection being met

• Reciprocity in effort and care

• Space for both people's growth

• Fun and enjoyment alongside the hard stuff

• Trust (built over time, not perfect from the start)

Not required:

• Perfect communication every time

• Never fighting or disagreeing

• Always feeling passionate or intensely connected

• The other person meeting every need

• Never feeling disappointed or frustrated

Good Enough Self-Care

Good enough self-care means:

• Meeting basic needs for sleep, food, movement, connection

• Taking breaks before complete burnout

• Having some activities that bring joy or restoration

• Seeking help when struggling

• Basic health maintenance

Not required:

• Optimized morning routine with meditation, journaling, exercise

• Perfect nutrition, sleep, and fitness

• Always choosing the healthiest option

• Never using comfort food, TV, or other "less optimal" coping

• Making self-care your identity or second job

Good Enough Work

Good enough work performance means:

• Meeting job requirements and deadlines

• Being generally reliable and responsive

• Producing quality work (not perfect, but competent)

• Being a reasonable colleague

• Continuing to learn and grow

Not required:

• Being the best performer

• Working nights and weekends regularly

• Sacrificing wellbeing for work

• Never making mistakes

• Going above and beyond constantly

Good Enough Parenting

Good enough parenting means:

• Meeting children's basic needs consistently

• Being emotionally available most of the time

• Repairing ruptures when they happen

• Providing structure and consistency

• Helping children feel safe and loved

Not required:

• Never losing your temper

• Always having patience

• Being present every moment

• Making no mistakes

• Raising "perfect" children

Good Enough Healing

Good enough healing/therapy progress means:

• Overall trajectory toward health even with setbacks

• Some periods of growth, some periods of maintenance

• Gradual improvement in functioning

• Better tools for managing difficulties

• Increased self-awareness and compassion

Not required:

• Linear progress without regression

• Complete symptom elimination

• Perfect implementation of coping skills

• Reaching some final "healed" state

• Never struggling again

The Freedom of "Good Enough"

Learning to embrace "good enough" is ultimately liberating:

Freedom from perfection: You don't have to be perfect. Your relationships don't have to be perfect. Your work doesn't have to be perfect. This is exhausting to pursue and impossible to achieve.

Freedom from settling: "Good enough" isn't settling for mistreatment or inadequacy—it's finding the healthy middle ground between impossible standards and accepting harm.

Freedom to be human: You're allowed to be a regular human with limitations, needs, mistakes, and imperfections. So are the people around you.

Freedom to enjoy life: When you're not constantly measuring everything against impossible standards or accepting substandard treatment, you have energy to actually enjoy the good things in your life.

Freedom to rest: "Good enough" means you can rest, stop striving, and be satisfied with adequate rather than always reaching for more.

Moving Forward

Defining "good enough" for yourself is ongoing work, not a destination. You'll continually refine your understanding as you:

• Heal from attachment trauma

• Experience healthier relationships

• Build confidence in your judgment

• Learn more about your needs and values

• Grow and change over time

Some guiding principles:

Your needs are legitimate. Basic needs for respect, safety, care, and consideration aren't excessive—they're human.

You deserve the same standards you'd hold for loved ones. If you wouldn't want a friend to accept certain treatment, you shouldn't accept it either.

"Good enough" includes imperfection. Both in yourself and others. Mistakes, conflicts, and limitations are part of being human.

Your past doesn't determine your future. What you experienced or accepted before doesn't define what you must accept now.

It's okay to not know. If you're genuinely confused about what's reasonable, that confusion makes sense given your history. You can learn over time.

You can change your standards. As you heal and grow, your standards may shift—this isn't weakness or instability, it's growth.

"Good enough" serves you. Your standards should protect your wellbeing, promote your growth, and allow for satisfying relationships and life—not serve others' comfort or maintain familiar suffering.

You deserve a life where "good enough" is actually good enough—where you're not constantly settling for harm while calling it acceptable, or pursuing impossible perfection while calling yourself a failure. You deserve the nuanced, complex, imperfect-but-healthy middle ground where real life happens.

Learning to find and trust that middle ground is part of healing from attachment trauma. It's difficult work, but it's possible, and you deserve the freedom and peace that come with knowing what's truly good enough for you.