Catastrophize. Ruminate. Overthink. People Pleaser: Upgrading Your Tools

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:00:00]:
Hello. Before we start today's episode, if you would like a condensed version of what I'm talking about in this podcast, go ahead and subscribe to The Perfectionist Guide. You can read the entire thing in 3 minutes or less. To access this, go to courtneylovegavin.com/newsletter. Are you a bit of a perfectionist, type A, hyper performer? Then you know what it is like when your perfectionism is a constant god awful companion. But it doesn't have to be. If you are ready to burn bright instead of burning out, to lead without losing yourself, and to enjoy the life you have worked so hard to create, then keep listening. I'm your host, America's leader on rewiring perfectionism, CLG, and this is Perfectionism Rewired, the podcast.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:00:55]:
Welcome to Perfectionism Rewired. This episode, it's going to the root of what is underneath the ruminating, the people pleasing, the overthinking, the catastrophizing, the reassurance seeking, I'm going to give you questions to ask yourself so you can really understand how this root cause is actually impacting you. I am illuminating the 3 different types of this root cause that tend to show up. And, yes, there is an awesome acronym that I created. And then I am walking you through exactly what to do when the ruminating, the people pleasing, the overthinking, the catastrophizing pops up, and how you can redirect in a very useful and productive way so that you can get the relief that you deserve. This right here is what I'm sharing with you, was so pivotal in my own rewiring. This was one of those things that, when I found out about it, I was like, this changes everything. Like, oh, my gosh.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:02:12]:
Now I finally know why. Because knowing why something happens, especially for perfectionists, that's what we need. We need the why. And not, oh, this is bad for you, or, oh, you shouldn't be doing this. PS, if anyone says you shouldn't be doing this, walk away. Walk away. Okay? Shame is never the answer. So, with that, let's get into the episode.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:02:37]:
As perfectionists, if you tend to catastrophize or ruminate or overthink, instead of being like, Oh, why am I doing this again? It can be helpful to be like, Oh, okay. My brain is going this way because, 1, that's what it knows. And, 2, because it's a form of reassurance. Just like when you think about a kid, they have their binky or they have their blanket. Why? Because it gives them reassurance. As human species, we might get older, but we just get more sophisticated with our tools. So instead of a binky or a wubby, you have rumination, and you have catastrophizing, and you have overthinking, and you have people pleasing. And, like, that isn't a problem.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:03:20]:
Okay? Because we were all children. It's something we all have in common. We all wore diapers. We don't wear diapers anymore. We can feed ourselves. We no longer have to be burped after our meals. It's the same thing when it comes to your perfectionistic tendencies the overthinking and the ruminating and the people pleasing, let's step into the truth booth together. The feeling of relief you get from the overthinking, the ruminating, it helps that feeling of dread lessen a little bit.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:03:55]:
Like if you go back and review your email, or maybe you check-in with one of your colleagues and you're like, You liked my presentation. You get a temporary feeling of relief, but it doesn't actually help you to develop resilience and sculpt the muscles of courage, conviction, and confidence in yourself to have that titanium foundation, you can have a little being unsure or catastrophize? Do you ask other people for their opinion when you're feeling unsure? Are you constantly monitoring your body to make sure that you are okay? Like, are you always looking at your heart rate and your health stats or your oximeter or your Oura ring? Do you feel a compulsion to constantly check your email, texts, and phone. Like, if you don't have your phone by you, it's like and not because you're worried that someone stole it. You're like, well, what if I get a message and I don't reply right away? Or just, like, having a number on your inbox because it's, like, it's unknown. You you don't know if it's a Nastygram or it's Oprah Winfrey that emailed you. Do you find yourself over apologizing? Do you annoy others sometimes because you never seem to be able to let go of things? Do you plan obsessively? Like, oh, I need to make a plan. I need to make a plan. You do the planning because it helps you feel less anxious.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:05:34]:
Do you feel like you have an internal tug of war that never seems to be resolved? Should I do this? Should I do that? I don't know, but I could do this. I could do that. And, like, you're very aware that you're on the the merry-go-round, but you just, like you're like, ah, how do I get off? Do you experience paralysis over decisions? You're like, oh, I just wish you would tell me what to do. Maybe you procrastinate or you don't make a decision so that it could be made for you even if you don't like the one that was made. But it just, like, gives you a little bit of relief because you didn't have to make the decision because you're worried that you need to make the right decision. And so even if the decision turns out wrong, at least you know that, like, you didn't make it. Like, it was made for you. Do you find yourself constantly searching for that one last piece of information? Are you binging podcasts and the first time you heard about sunk cost fallacy is from me on this podcast.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:06:28]:
And then all of a sudden, you're like, okay. I need to listen to all the podcasts on sunk cost fallacy. Do you ever search because this was me. Like, I would make spreadsheets before I would buy something for myself. Like, I can't tell you how many freaking hours I clocked researching air purifiers. Forget HEPA filters. We're going to go like 10 things below. You would think that I was bubble boy, but you're just constantly thinking that if you have one more piece of information, then you will be able to to finally settle a question or help you decide.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:07:04]:
And then when you find it, you realize that you have more questions than the answers, and you're just constantly looking for more? If you answered yes to any of those, then this episode is really going to help you. The issue with everything that we just covered is that it actually doesn't help. Like, I live in Santa Monica. If I'm trying to get to Vancouver, but I take the 5 South, I'm gonna end up in TJ, AKA Tijuana. I'm not going to get to Vancouver. I'm not traveling that way. Think about, okay, what road do I want to go down? Do I wanna go to dread, insecurity, inadequacy, anxiety, frazzled, and feeling really unstable? Do you wanna go down that road? And if you do, mozzle. And if you want to go north, if you want to upgrade, if you want to rise up, what we don't want to do is go down overthinking overpass or rumination road.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:08:06]:
Like, if you're trying to go north, taking the road south, you're never going to get there. Here are the unproductive, inefficient, inadequate, impotent, and out of control, behaviors that tend to show up. So you can see, Oh, yeah. That's totally what I do. These are ones that you're like, Okay. I'm getting on the wrong road. There is an awesome acronym that I created for them, PEU. Like, PU.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:08:33]:
Oh, this is stinky. Basically, you are doing the equivalent of just like putting your head in a porta potty, like your whole head. And if that makes you wanna gag right now, great. Because the more visceral sensory type things that we can attach to those behaviors, that will help you. So with PEU, the P stands for proving. This is any form of behavior where you need to be absolutely sure, and you are approving. A very popular way that this comes up for perfectionists is if you find yourself constantly checking your text or your email to make sure that everything is okay and no one needs you urgently. Another way the proving comes up is when you are apologizing to someone over and over to make sure that they're not angry or upset with something that you said or did.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:09:27]:
Like, are you sure you're okay? Are you okay? Or, like, next time you see them, you're like, hey. So I just wanna let you know I'm so sorry about another way the proving comes up, I have this rash. Do I have leprosy? And you need to go and check and go to the Google images of, like, what leprosy looks like. Or your presentation is basically done, and you've already looked over it, but you haven't, sent it to your team because you just wanna check one more time to make certain that there aren't any mistakes. Another way that this can come up, and it seems so innocent, is you're like, I just wanna make sure. But then what happens is that checking that one thing leads to another and another, the doubt expands. And this used to happen to me. My whole project expanded.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:10:13]:
Like, I went looking for one thing, but then I found something else. And like, I don't even know what my original quest was. You can become trapped in these activities of trying to dispel the doubt all day long. Then you've completely lost your perspective. You might even say that you're someone that you could become obsessed, but it's not an obsessed and like, oh, I can't wait to learn more about this. It's more of like, no, I need to know. I need to know everything. It is an insatiable hunger.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:10:43]:
Like, you're never going to get to Vancouver if you continuously take the path to Tijuana. So that is the p. The e stands for echo. So that is when you are looking for reassurance from someone else that doesn't actually know any more than you do, or it's like an unanswerable question. So, like, what the future holds or, like, nothing bad's going to happen to them on their field trip, right, when you're talking to your mom. You're not asking outright, but you're like, hey, tell me. Are you totally sure that this won't happen? Sometimes we even do it with ourselves where we are like, you're just being silly. Everything will be fine, but maybe you don't really like, for a lot of my clients, that goes on their yellow warning light sheet of like, it's fine.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:11:34]:
I'll be fine. Because like, oh, that's a warning sheet. There's some stuff underneath the hood. So that is what the E stands for. And then the u stands for undercover. Here's how the undercover shows up. You try and guess what other people are thinking. Maybe you even look at their facial expressions, which, by the way, they have unequivocally found on a global basis studying millions and millions of of humans all over the world in all different cultures, you cannot actually tell what people are thinking based on their facial expressions.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:12:07]:
Scientifically, like, on the inside, there is no unique fingerprint where they can say, if your posture is like this, if your eyes are down, thinking about the look on your boss's face, the PU. Another way that the undercover shows up, if you are constantly planning or obsessively trying to, like, solve something that's really bothering you. It can be so automatic and habitual that you don't even realize that you are seeking perfectly right response to what an anticipated conversation, all the different ways that it can go, trying to convince yourself that by having this script to use, you will totally achieve your goal, no matter what the other person says or does. Escape planning is another way that can be totally undercover, where you just think that you're really prepared. Maybe you even ask yourself, like, what are the chances that this will come through? What are the probability? It's any way that you basically try and soothe yourself with the doubt. A lot of times, you're constantly trying to predict what other people are gonna do. You might even be embarrassed to, like, ask someone directly because you feel that you should already feel confident about this. You'll say something like, love you, but the undertone of that is, like, do you love me back? That's what you're thinking when you do it.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:13:38]:
Or my clients will be like, this was a really good coaching session. And then I won't say anything, and they'll be like, wasn't wasn't it you thought this was a good coaching session? Or you'll say, like, I didn't offend him, when you're, like, talking to your partner. But underneath that, you're thinking, like, did I? It's like that puppy dog tail. You're wagging. You're, like, just just pet me. Just pet me. Just tell me it's okay. So that is the PU path.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:14:02]:
When you find yourself physically doing things to prove it, it's when you are looking for an echo, going to other people, asking them questions, could even be Doctor. Google that you're going to, or it's undercover. It's covert. It's the ruminating, and it's trying to predict with PEU. All of these behaviors, it's an attempt to reduce the anxiety, which, hello, yes, we want to do. But what it really is doing is it's avoiding the uncertainty. Like, if I don't overextend myself and people please all the time, then how will I know they're not mad at me? The root cause is, I don't know how to deal with this feeling of uncertainty, or doubt, or dread. All of these relief tactics are failed attempts to reduce uncertainty.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:14:56]:
Might do it temporarily, but long term, it's not there. It would just be like if you have heart disease, you are like, but I'm just going to exclusively eat full fat whipped cream cheese and dip Flamin' Hot Cheetos in it. Like, that's just what you're gonna do all day every day. Yeah. It might make you feel better in the moment, but all that you're doing is you are making the heart disease worse. These behaviors that perfectionists take, it's the same thing. What I'm saying is like, hey, you can do better than that, walking you through exactly how you can redirect in a very useful and productive way so that you can get the relief that you deserve, free from the dread and the doubt and the anxiety and the overthinking. Productive relief.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:15:46]:
Productive relief leads to an action plan. Example of useful relief is, let's say you are redoing your kitchen. It's over a 100 years old, and you're worried you have lead paint in your house. What do you do for relief? Instead of looking up all of the things about lead and what are the signs and maybe do I have it, you test, and then you're like, okay, there's no lead. And that's it. You know that you are in useful, productive, and additive relief, the kind that brings you sustainable stability and sereneness. Here's how you know that that's happening. After you take the action, it doesn't raise new questions and doubts.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:16:32]:
Can be as simple as checking once. Yeah, that email went through. That's it. If it's like, oh, well, I need to check this, I need to check this. No, you don't actually need to check that. That means you're turned around, you're going south, and you're headed towards Tijuana. Also, useful relief doesn't spin you round and round. It's not thinking about the same issue over and over again.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:16:55]:
As perfectionists, it's just natural to accept a very skilled ability to have a vision and a compulsion to bring that into reality. That is why perfectionists are what make the world go round, especially when you are owning your perfectionism instead of it owning you. You're not mediocre Molly. That can just be like, Yeah, you know, things could be better, but okay, I'm just going to settle over here, eat mashed potatoes and vanilla ice cream every night. Like, that's not you. Okay? So, like, knowing that it's helpful to know the way that your neurons are wired is naturally to see something and wanna do something about it. That is what makes you brilliant. You have a Ferrari drive.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:17:46]:
Let's stop grinding your gears. Let's say that you are very concerned you hurt your sister's feelings. You are really worried that you might have like slighted her in some way, that she might be upset with you. So there are 2 ways that you can go about this. If you're new to playing the game of life as an empowered perfectionist, would be to ask her. Directly ask your sister only once. And when you do that, be willing to accept the response, and know that you will never know for sure whether or not she's telling you the truth or just wants to be polite, or maybe she's just really avoidant and passive aggressive. And she's like, it's fine.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:18:32]:
I'm not mad. Everything's great. Then, like, it's icy between you 2 for a little bit. The difference with useful relief, you can ask the person directly. I use the sister as an example. You can ask them directly. But in doing that, you ask them one time, and you accept their answer at face value. The advanced way is that you just decide I'm a fully capable adult in human and they're a fully capable adult in human.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:18:57]:
And if they are upset with me, I trust that they will communicate that to me. You are not responsible for how somebody else feels. Okay? Who are you responsible for? You, y o u. You're the CEO of you. You're responsible for how you feel. It's not fair to put like, in that example, it's not fair to put that on your sister. We're like, oh, okay, I can feel good about myself as long as I know that she's not mad at me. And it's like, no, you can just feel good about yourself, period.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:19:30]:
Productive, plentiful, positive relief means even if you're not absolutely sure, you take your best guess. You accept that even with all the other doubts. Like, you just decide to not feed them, because it's like picking scabs. If I were to do that, like, perfectionism rewired, perfectionist solutions, my business, none of it would exist if I would have continued down the PU path. I did the proving, I did the echoing, and I did all the undercover stuff. Finally, I was like, there's got to be a better way. I wasn't absolutely sure at all. I had no idea.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:20:07]:
Like, I wasn't absolutely sure when I was like, you know what? I'm going all in on perfectionism. I'm gonna talk about it in a way that nobody else is, Being a perfectionist, there is a better way, a much better way. Actually, like, feels good, is sustainable, and gives you that titanium foundation and backbone and confidence and conviction in yourself. When you have that bone and confidence and conviction in yourself. When you have that confidence and that resilience, even if you don't have a step by step, you trust yourself. And you're like, I'll figure it out. Some stuff's gonna come up. Okay.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:20:38]:
It's okay. Like, you're okay with not being okay. Other ways that you can start implementing this for yourself, which I always recommend you do after each episode, is your information diet. Decide, this is going to be my source. I'm just gonna click on this one thing, and that's going to be it. Instead of being like, oh, I have 42 open tabs, and I need to read all of them before I come to a consensus. Also, sometimes these behaviors, like, my perfectionistic tendency to constantly research will come up all the time. But then I get present.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:21:12]:
I notice it, and I'm like, oh, I have enough information. And then I just, like, close all the tabs. You become CEO of YOU, and you're just like, okay. Yeah. No. We're just gonna go with this. Because also, this is the part perfectionist clients that I work with are like, oh my God, you're so right. The way that you become free of the doubt, dread, and of the anxiety is that instead of relying on being overprepared, knowing everything, checking in with everyone, that that is so exhausting.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:21:43]:
So exhausting. And I know that because I've been there. And if you are there right now, I just wanna let you know, hey, you don't have to live that way anymore. There is a better path instead of the PU path. Instead of being like, I'll be okay as long as everything goes according to plan, what you can have is that even if all the things that you are planning goes awry or one person emails you and then it just throws your whole day off. You can have the stability within yourself that you don't get shook by that anymore. White knuckling your perfectionistic tendencies is rough. You have other options.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:22:23]:
You have useful options to seek relief that is better for you long term, like relief that gives you resilience, relief that gives you confidence, relief that gives you clarity, relief that gives you direction in yourself, so that you can be developing and sculpting that muscle of like, hey, I got me. And as long as I'm here, I know that I will figure it the f out. Instead of, oh, no. I have the step by step right here. You're just like, I'll figure it out. I got this. You're able to be flexible instead of rigid and clenchy. So you can, like, let go of, I need to know everything.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:23:03]:
I need to do everything. Instead, you can just be like, I'm here. You do not have to white knuckle your perfectionistic tendencies. And if you feel like you are, I invite you to come work with me 1 on 1 inside of Perfectionism Optimized, where you will learn how to be totally in charge and in command of your life, which means that you will finally stop trying to desperately control how everyone feels about you. You just stop trying to control, and you actually become in charge of your life because there is a big difference. You get to redefine what you want for your life to be about, what success means to you. We meet you where you are. So it's not like, oh my gosh.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:23:49]:
I started coaching with CLG, and now I need to make 10 hours a week for my homework. No. It's not like that. We integrate it into the things that you are already doing. Do you begin to feel more calm and confident when you're getting your kids ready to, like, go to daycare in the morning? When you're like, oh, shit. This is a challenge. We get to figure it out together, and you come out on the other side stronger, more confident, and more capable. You have a lifeline, so that you never have to wait until you have a coaching session to get guidance.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:24:25]:
You can text me at any time. We're gonna go deep and not deep like what happened to you when you were 5 years old, but deep into, like, hey, let's solve it at the source so everything in your life as a ripple effect gets better. We don't even need to coach on your relationship. Your relationship will improve. The tools that you learn in interoceptive awareness massively improves your sex life. Why? It helps expand the areas in your brain and routes that let you have more pleasurable orgasms. However you identify, we all have orgasms. The interoceptive networks responsible for that are going to be strong and lit up.

Courtney Love Gavin (CLG) [00:25:07]:
We're not doing sex coaching, but your sex life gets better. So if you want this for yourself, then go to perfectionist.solutions