Trying My Best and Still Never Enough
There comes a point where you’re trying so hard in every area of your life that nothing feels like enough.
You’re trying to be present as a mother which includes being a full-time chef and teacher, being a supportive friend through all the different phases your friends are going through and remain reliable for your family, focused at work, organised at home, emotionally available for everyone around you. Somehow, somewhere in the middle of juggling all of that, you are expected to have it all together. When you realise you don’t or it feels as if you don’t, you start to feel like you’re failing at all of it. For me that’s when the ‘fuck it’ mentality sneaks up on me.
Not because you aren’t trying but because you’re trying so hard that you’ve spread yourself thin across the board. You show up everywhere, but never feel like you’re showing up well enough, you’re never present because your mind is consumed by everything that’s on today’s agenda.
You find yourself replaying conversations in your head wondering if you disappointed someone. You have a fear that you didn’t give your child enough time today and now you’re catastrophising the whole day and how this will impact his whole future because you didn’t respond to his ‘Can we play…?’ Immediately. You feel guilty for being late to something, distracted during something, or too tired for something else. I’ve come to realise that, there are seasons in life where it just feels like this.
There are moments where the weight of responsibility sits heavy and you feel like you’re constantly running yet somehow always a step behind.
On days like that, I’ve learned something important: sometimes you just have to let yourself feel it. Feel the frustration, allow it to sit there for a moment. Acknowledge the exhaustion. Let the critical self tell you that you’re not doing enough.
But the next day you are going to put on your big girl pants, get up and carry on.
It’s not because the feelings weren’t real or weren’t valid, but because if you sit in them too long you risk spiralling into a place that tells you you’re failing, when really you’re just a normal human, the same as everyone else.
As we all tell our kids constantly ‘you can only try your best’ but yet we don’t give ourself the same kindness or patience.
The people who truly matter will see that your trying, they’ll see that you continue to show up in the big ways and the small.
Whilst our children might not understand it right now. They might only see the rushed mornings, the quick dinners, the constant shouting from downstairs “come on we’re late.” but one day they will have their own responsibilities, their own packed schedules, their own lives pulling them in ten directions. They’ll remember the spelling tests done in the car. The forgotten taekwando dobok on a Wednesday because I was too flustered to remember at 7.00.
They’ll remember the way you still showed up even when you were clearly running on empty. And maybe they’ll realise that what looked chaotic at the time was actually sacrifice.
Your friends might only see you turning up late to lunch after weeks of trying to find a free day in everyone’s diaries. The friends who matter won’t be counting the minutes, they’ll just be glad you came. Showing up imperfectly is still showing up.
The things you’re striving for, the job you want, the stability you’re building, the life you’re trying to create, they will come. It might not be overnight or within the timeline you’d made on your 2026 vision board but it will come and sometimes you have to remind yourself how far you’ve come already.
Seven years ago my life looked completely different.
Three years ago it looked different again.
Life changes in ways we never plan. You grow and build through circumstances you never expected. You become a version of yourself that past-you wouldn’t even recognise.
And sometimes that version of you ends up sitting on a burnt amber velvet sofa at 5am in your own house on a Saturday morning, writing thoughts like this. Reflecting on how much has changed and how much you’re still trying.
Even on the days you felt like you weren’t enough. You did it!
Hi, I'm Emilia Isabelle 
Leave a comment