How to Be Enough

Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists

By: Ellen Hendriksen

Narrated by: 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

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