4 Gentle Boundaries for Exhausted Perfectionists
It’s an HSP story as old as time…
take care of others first, even at the expense of your own rest and happiness
say yes to nearly every request, even if you don’t want to
push yourself to do more, even when no one else is watching!
Sound familiar?
If you’re constantly feeling exhausted or overwhelmed, it’s important to take a look at how much you’re taking on. Boundaries are an essential piece to the puzzle of finding balance and feeling more rested.
There are many types of boundaries and different approaches to implementing those boundaries. For instance, sometimes you set an internal boundary with yourself:
choosing to read before bed instead of scrolling social media
not taking the bait when your mind wants to ruminate over an issue one more time
giving yourself permission to be imperfect at something
Other times you’ll directly set a boundary with others:
turning down an invite to a social gathering
letting your boss know you can’t work late
reminding a pushy family member that you’re not going to discuss your personal affairs
If boundaries are something that are scary or bring up immediate feelings of guilt for you, you might benefit from gently dipping a toe into the boundary pond. Below I share a mixture of internal limits you can set with yourself and indirect limits you can set with others. These gentle boundaries will help free up more downtime for your frazzled HSP self and start to unhook from any perfectionist tendencies you may have.
Choosing Imperfection at Work
Redefining your standards at work is essential for all highly sensitive folks. Instead of giving your 100%, give what you can maintain for the long-term. Your personal version of 100% probably includes at least a dash of perfectionism and could be unsustainable. Often an HSP will exceed expectations at a fraction of that output, say 70-80%.
You may not realize it, but your level of commitment, keen eye for detail, strong intuition, and ability to process and innovate brings so much to the table. Pushing yourself to a point of perfectionism is not necessary to be valuable and employable. If you’re often getting burned out at work, this is definitely something to check in with yourself about.
Are you giving more than you have to?
Could you reserve some of that energy for yourself?
Where could you take a “good enough” approach?
Protect Your Personal Space
You’re trying to relax after a busy day and your phone starts to ding. Could be a work email, a social media notification, a text from your friend, or a phone call. You’re exhausted and overstimulated, but feel compelled to answer. What would happen if you allowed yourself to set a subtle boundary instead? No one would know, you wouldn’t even have to say anything - unless you wanted to or had the bandwidth to. You could just put your phone away and take some much-needed downtime instead. You are in charge of your device and how you want to engage with it, not the other way around.
Are those messages really that urgent?
How much do you want to be available and when?
What time is best for you to cut off notifications and put your phone to bed?
Do Less
Does your perfectionism ever hook you in and you get stuck doing more than necessary? It’s a blessing and a curse when you’ve got an eye for detail and a vivid imagination of how great something could be if you just pushed yourself a little harder! Often being highly perceptive and imaginative is a helpful asset, but combining these abilities with perfectionism is usually unnecessary, unrealistic, and/or leads to depletion.
I have to be careful about using more energy than I need or want to. For instance, I’ll intend to tidy up the house in the morning so I can focus on hobbies or rest, but then find myself deep cleaning which leaves no energy left for anything else! Another example is that I’ll be working on the monthly accounting for my business and find myself redesigning the spreadsheet for hours! Totally unnecessary, especially when there are other end-of-month tasks to complete including getting downtime.
How much energy and time do I have/want to dedicate to this task?
What does “good enough” look like?
Is there something else that I wanted/needed to be focusing on right now?
Quiet Your Inner World
How often do you get stuck in a thought spiral or feel like your emotions are hijacking you? Maybe you also feel compelled to dish out more empathy than you want or can give to the people in your life. Something I’ve personally been working on is really paying attention to my inner world and setting limits with what I want to happen there.
If you’re worried about something, you can decide to actively process it for 10-15 minutes through journaling, thinking, talking, art, or whatever form of expression suits you best. That’s an internal boundary that allows you to take an active role in your process rather than feeling overwhelmed by it. You can do the same when processing an emotional moment, adjusting the time based on the impact and weight of the experience.
The same intention can be applied to when you’re sitting with others. The obvious boundary is to limit the physical time together, but there’s another subtle opportunity to set a boundary from the moment you sit down with the person. You get to decide how much of your empathy and emotional energy you want to give.
Instead of really putting yourself in their shoes and imagining what it would feel like or racking your brain trying to figure out how to fix the problem, you could listen and give simple validating responses such as “that’s really hard” or “I would probably feel the same”. You could also limit the number of follow-up questions to contain or shorten the conversation.
What conclusion did I come to last time I thought about this? Is there anything I want to remember to tell myself next time this thought/worry comes up? (write this down)
How much of my own empathy/energy do I have/want to give today?
When I feel this emotion, what helps me honor, soothe, and contain it?
For highly sensitive people, boundaries can feel intimidating, scary, unfamiliar, and bring up feelings of guilt. If you haven’t built a strong relationship with boundaries yet, slowly ease into the practice setting clear limits - with yourself and others. This will preserve your downtime and ultimately strengthen your relationships.
For more support to set boundaries without guilt, feel less overwhelmed, and get more downtime, join me for July’s Sensitive Self-Care Session. You can attend live or catch the recording!
