How to Be Enough

Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists

De: Ellen Hendriksen

Narrado por: Ellen Hendriksen

“Psychologist and therapist Ellen Hendriksen has a likable, easygoing narrating style that holds together the impressive amount of useful information in her latest audiobook.”—AudioFile

This program is read by the author.

Are you your own toughest critic? Learn to be good to yourself with this clear and compassionate guide.

Do you set demanding standards for yourself? If so, a lot likely goes well in your life: You might earn compliments, admiration, or accomplishments. Your high standards and hard work pay off.

But privately, you may feel like you’re falling behind, faking it, or different from everybody else. Your eagle-eyed inner quality control inspector highlights every mistake. You try hard to avoid criticism, but criticize yourself. Trying to get it right is your guiding light, but it has lit the way to a place of dissatisfaction, loneliness, or disconnection. In short, you may look like you’re hitting it out of the park, but you feel like you’re striking out.

This is perfectionism. And for everyone who struggles with it, it’s a misnomer: perfectionism isn’t about striving to be perfect. It’s about never feeling good enough.

Dr. Ellen Hendriksen—clinical psychologist, anxiety specialist, and author of How to Be Yourself—is on the same journey as you. In How to Be Enough, Hendriksen charts a flexible, forgiving, and freeing path, all without giving up the excellence your high standards and hard work have gotten you. She delivers seven shifts—including from self-criticism to kindness, control to authenticity, procrastination to productivity, comparison to contentment—to find self-acceptance, rewrite the Inner Rulebook, and most of all, cultivate the authentic human connections we’re all craving.

With compassion and humor, Hendriksen lays out a clear, effective, and empowering guide. To enjoy rather than improve, be real rather than impressive, and be good to yourself when you’re wired to be hard on yourself.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press Essentials.

©2025 Ellen Hendriksen (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A fascinating exploration of the costs of perfectionism, How to Be Enough provides a guide to breaking free from self-criticism so you can live a life of joy and fulfillment.” —Olga Khazan, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World

“Dr. Ellen Hendriksen writes with a clinician’s authority and expertise, and with compassion, humor, and deep understanding, she shares a practical, empowering vision of how to heal the perfectionist within, a problem that can too easily hamper many of us. How to be Enough is highly engaging and essential.” —Ken Duckworth, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and author of You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health―With Advice from Experts and Wisdom from Real People and Families

“Anxiety and depression are increasing rapidly, and one of the causes is the increasingly high standards that we are imposing on ourselves for productivity and success. In this brilliant and entertaining book, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen outlines proven steps that will lead to greater satisfaction and happiness in life.” —Dr. David Barlow, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry Emeritus, and Founder of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University

Helpful, relatable.

So helpful. Helpful advice was life changing for me —for work and for home. No suggestion of making big changes. Small changes that make a big difference. Great presentation. Author’s tone is one of reassurance and quite entertaining. Evidence based, achievable ideas for change, and some humor kept things relatable. Now I need other family members to listen to this audiobook !

Accessible and actionable

Practical and helpful. The author delivers her message with a reassuring tone and just the right dose of sensitive humor.

Revealing

Going through it my second time. So helpful to me on my social anxiety journey.

Super helpful tools to use immediately

I found this extremely helpful. She provides clear things to try for immediate support and relief. Plus she is funny and entertaining. Real life examples bring it all home.

LOVED this book!

I loved Ellen's previous book "How to be yourself" that helped me understand my social anxiety and how to deal with it. I like the audio book as Ellen is just super funny and relatable.

This book went to the next level and helped me understand perfectionists and how they can deal with it. While I don't consider myself a perfectionist (Good enough is my catch phrase ;-), it did help me understand some people in my life that are more like that and how they can deal with their strength and weakness (depending on the situation). Just like in the previous book, super funny, educational, and insightful. LOVED IT!

worth every minute

one of the best books I've listened to about how to start dealing with all the things we like to ignore