Perfectionism: Is it keeping you up at night?
Are you lying in bed at night ruminating on how you could have done better worrying if others noticed that you could have done better too? Are you punishing yourself for not meeting your own expectations? Are you making mental notes about what you’d do differently next time and who you perhaps need to smooth things over with in the morning? If this sounds like you it’s possible you could be a perfectionist and it could be what it is standing between you and a good night’s sleep.
What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is one of the most prevalent social values in modern society. That means that it is one of the most common strategies used by people to guide and evaluate their behaviours and to express their needs. Your perfectionism is a result of your social system i.e., culture, education, economy, etc. playing a role in developing and conditioning your behaviours from a young age.
As a personality trait, perfectionism is characterized by striving for flawlessness. Setting excessively high standards for performance, followed by tendencies to be overly critical of your own behaviour. It is multidimensional, and has three aspects to it; self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed. ‘Self-oriented’ refers to your tendency to set and strive to achieve high self-standards of performance. ‘Other oriented’ is holding the expectation that others will be flawless in their execution of activities. ‘Socially prescribed’ perfectionism is holding the belief that others expect you to be perfect and it is this dimension of perfectionism that stands between you and a good night’s sleep.
Perfection vs high standards
I can often be hearing saying that there is nothing wrong with having high standards, and there isn’t. However, the way you talk to yourself for not matching up to those standards does. If you are berating yourself, giving yourself a hard time, or feeling embarrassed for not meeting your own standards then that is problematic. The ideal would be to set high standards and plan to achieve them. And no matter if you do or don’t achieve them, to take the learnings from the experience to implement next time.
Socially prescribed perfection requires you to meet your standard no matter what. It may not be grounded in reality as it is your perception of what others expect of you. Likely skewed towards flawlessness. High standards are there to challenge you and to see what you can do. Recognising the difference is key.
Socially prescribed perfection can develop due to your perceived expectations set by your family, peers, or the institutions you belong to. Almost always setting yourself up for failure and likely disappointment. It can put an enormous strain on you as often becomes the real enemy to your progress, as well as your ability to succeed. No surprise then that it impacts your ability to sleep.
Why perfectionism affects sleep
The socially prescribed perfectionist’s approach to life can lead you to continuously set goals which you and most other people are unable to achieve. Leaving you feeling despondent and eroding your self-confidence. Over time you run the risk of feeling incompetent and escalating your perfectionist tendencies in an attempt to strive to meet the expectations you perceive others have for you. This strategy is flawed and counterproductive.
5 reasons why perfectionism can hamper your sleep progress
1. Perfectionists are inefficient
You, as a perfectionist may have the best intentions when tackling a project and put everything you have into it. This requires an extreme amount of your energy, time, and resources. As a result, you may not be efficient at all, as you can spread yourself too thin and run out of ‘oomph.’ You just isn’t enough time or energy to attain the desired result.
Perfectionism shifts the priority from getting things done effectively, to causing a project to take much longer than expected. This means that you may appear to be inefficient as you may not be able to complete tasks on time.
2. Perfectionists generate self-inflicted stress
Making everything perfect puts you under enormous pressure. This induces worry, fear, and anxiety, especially if you are taking longer than you would like on a project. Additionally, being stressed is not conducive to working efficiently, productively or making good decisions.
Perfectionism keeps you stuck in a loop, more than it gives you the ability to move forward and progress.
3. Surprises generate unhelpful anxiety
As a perfectionist, you need everything to go your way as there is so much riding on the outcome. When things don’t go according to plan emotional anxiety attempts to speed things up for you. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect, and you feel overwhelmed to the point where positive action may become a challenge. As a result, your motivation and ability to apply consistent action is compromised and open mindedness is challenging.
4. Perfectionism delays appropriate action
Achieving perfection is not easy. It can be daunting when you set that as your goal. As a result, you may delay action because you need circumstances to be just right to do so, thereby giving yourself less time to achieve your desired outcome. Ultimately undermining your potential contribution.
5. Perfectionism diverts focus
You may think and feel you’re providing the best results that are needed for a given project because you are a perfectionist, but the opposite is actually true. Perfectionism takes the focus out of the actual progress and shifts it into multiple bothersome details that may not always be relevant to achieving the goal.
Your sleep goals are hampered by these approaches because when your mind starts to still, these thoughts fill your mind and appear as rumination. And your desire for perfection requires you to evaluate your progress towards it. However, with these approaches you will almost always be disappointed and miss your goal leaving you with plenty of content to ruminate on and interfere with a good night’s sleep.
If you are serious about changing your relationship with sleep and about sleeping well, then I encourage you to book a Sleep Well Planning Call to start turning your sleep experience around.
