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

Critic reviews

“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

Creative-Opportunistic Tone

Enjoyed her enthusiasm and punctuality to the book. Had to read her physical book with her audible. Love!

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.

Insightful, Helpful, Enjoyable

I’m always a little skeptical about self help books, especially ones pertaining to self worth and perfectionism. They often give vague, yet general advice that most of us likely already know. This was NOT that. This was relatable, practical, and felt both like a warm hug of acceptance and a gentle kick in the butt. It was pleasant to listen to, funny at times, and super helpful, I highly recommend and will very likely listen again.

Revealing

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