Say Goodbye to Perfectionism With This Tip

What do you do when you start to worry?

I have moments where the worries swirling in my head become such a distraction — preventing me from doing the things that I WANT and NEED to be doing.

I recently read 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘞𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵: 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘖𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘡𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 by L'Oreal Thompson Payton, where she shares the most amazing tip on how to handle worrying in a productive way.

𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝘆.

Yep, you heard that right — schedule time on your calendar to worry. It may seem counterintuitive, but it works!

This gem comes from her fantastic debut book, Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power. I asked L’Oreal for permission to excerpt the part of her book where she elaborates on this, and she graciously agreed.

Perfectionists are prone to worry, and that’s by design. Worrying about every little detail distracts you from the bigger picture. I don’t know about you, but both my laptop and my brain constantly have twenty tabs open at all times. But, unlike my laptop, I can’t seem to shut down my brain at night. As soon as I lay down to sleep, my thoughts immediately become consumed with my to-do lists, forgotten tasks, and overall work-related anxiety. Did I send that email? Did I miss a deadline? Does so-and-so secretly hate me? My inner critic has a field day trying to convince me I can’t do anything right! And it seems like the harder I try to force out the thoughts or drown them out with my noise machine, the louder and more incessant they become. Which is why I’m a fan of sleep therapist and psychologist Nick Wignall’s “art of deliberate worry.”* According to Wignall, “Deliberate Worry is the practice of consistently making time each day to acknowledge your worries externally, and if necessary, make specific plans for addressing genuine problems.” Essentially, you’re training your brain to spill out all of your worries, concerns, and anxieties at a set time, sort of like a brain dump. Here’s how:

1. Start by scheduling a specific time to worry. Choosing the same time every day signals to your brain that this is the time and space to worry, not as you’re trying to go to bed or in the middle of the night. Anytime can work for “worry time,” say right before you log off from work or about an hour or so before bedtime, so long as it’s not right before you go to sleep. You want to give your brain some extra breathing room to unwind from the day. Creating a to-do list for the next day while you’re tucked into bed is only going to get you riled up—trust me on this one.

2. Decide on your medium. Once upon a time, I used an actual pocket-sized notebook to keep track of my worries, but these days I find myself using the Notes app on my phone. The how is less important than the what here. As Wignall notes, it’s about having a “trusted system for recording concerning problems.” After all, our brains love repetition and routine.

3. Determine what you can and can’t control. I get it, at the root of perfectionism is a dire need to control anything and everything around us. But this is not only stress-inducing, it’s also impossible. So, instead, I encourage you to divide your worry list into two smaller lists: one with things you can control (for example, remember to schedule that email to your manager) and the other with things you can’t control (such as how your manager will interpret said email). As my therapist likes to remind me, how other people perceive me is not my problem. This is not carte blanche to be an ass-hole. I do believe there is value in the Golden Rule of treating others how you’d like to be treated. But stressing over how other people interpret your emails, text messages, and the like is none of your concern. It is a distraction.

How smart is this? It’s truly been a game-changer for me. I want to teach my kids how to do this, too! If you’d like to read more about fighting your inner perfectionist, order L’Oreal’s book and follow her on LinkedIn. We also recently interviewed L’Oreal on the Bookbound podcast, so if you’re looking for more insight into her book publishing process, give it a listen here.

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