Self-Criticism Won’t Quit? Confidently Shut.It.Down

[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,

[00:00:09] go ahead and subscribe to the Perfectionist Guide. You can read the entire thing in three minutes or less.

[00:00:17] To access this, go to CourtneyLupGavin.com slash newsletter. Are you a bit of a perfectionist? Type A hyper performer? Then you know...

[00:00:29] It's like when your perfectionism is a constant god-awful companion.

[00:00:34] But it doesn't have to be. If you are ready to burn bright instead of burning out,

[00:00:39] to lead without losing yourself and to enjoy the life you have worked so hard to create, then keep listening.

[00:00:46] I'm your host, America's leader on rewiring perfectionism, CLG, and this is Perfectionism Rewired, the podcast.

[00:00:56] Welcome to Perfectionism Rewired. I am giving you the eight undercover reasons why your self-criticism cycle is continuing and the simple solution for each one.

[00:01:11] By listening to this episode, you're going to be able to identify what is actually happening with your self-criticism cycles and the very specific solution for you.

[00:01:23] If you do resonate with this episode, and it's like, now's the time.

[00:01:28] I want to move on this right now. I am like, yes, let's go. Let's do this.

[00:01:33] I don't want to spend one more day criticizing everything that I do. It is just... It is unbearable, and I'm not having it anymore.

[00:01:42] If that is you, then I invite you to CourtneyLoveGavin.com slash Optimae, criticizing yourself. It's a short-term fix.

[00:01:51] You're listening this episode because you've discovered for yourself. It's not sustainable. For example, my client June, when she started working with me,

[00:02:02] she said, I am basically constantly looking for what's wrong or what could be wrong or what could be improved upon or what could be fixed or how I could be better.

[00:02:12] She said it's not always that I think something is actually actively wrong or bad. It's even just that I think this could be even better.

[00:02:23] And then the criticism starts. She said, sometimes I can actually feel it happening. I will be sitting on my couch in a house that I love and I will look around the room.

[00:02:35] It's like my brain is looking for something to improve upon or to fix.

[00:02:41] And she said that she'll even do this with people close to her, like with her partner, that if they're watching a show together, she'll start looking at him.

[00:02:48] And then she'll be looking at his fingernails or the way that he's chewing his food and how loud and annoying it is.

[00:02:53] Now it's like I don't even know what fun is anymore. If I mess up internally, it's a freaking nightmare.

[00:03:00] I'm exhausting myself because I need to do everything at a thousand percent. Because if I don't, then I'm afraid for the way that I'm going to treat myself afterwards.

[00:03:13] If any of this rings familiar, this is the podcast for you.

[00:03:18] The first question to ask yourself is, were you raised with high expectations and constant criticism?

[00:03:26] And or is that a cornerstone of your family or cultural identity?

[00:03:34] If you answered yes to any and all of the above, those very high expectations that were put on you from a young age unconsciously have conditioned you to look for what's not good enough.

[00:03:51] Even if something was already fantastic.

[00:03:55] Here's the kicker. If you have experienced high expectations being put on you and like constant criticism, you probably have learned that criticism is how love is expressed.

[00:04:06] That is what family life is. That is how you identify like being part of your cultural identity is criticism.

[00:04:15] And without rewiring this perfectionistic pattern, what we know for sure 100% is that your brain will then apply this to your family of choice and your partner and your children and your friends and your colleagues and employees.

[00:04:36] Anyone that you have love for, you will unconsciously do this unless you rewire yourself.

[00:04:44] That if you're like, oh, Mike drop moment right now and you're like texting this furiously to like everyone in your family, like, oh my gosh, I get it now.

[00:04:53] If you feel a tie here, then what is the solution? Love. It's about finding other ways to express love.

[00:05:04] Number two, all human brains get dopamine from finding and solving problems.

[00:05:12] Your ability to problem solve is a real asset in a lot of areas of your life. The way that we're wired as perfectionist, we see problems but then we're like, and these are all the solutions that it could be solving problems gives you dopamine.

[00:05:29] Also, if you are neuro diverse, we have some dopamine regulation issues. The way that we get around this is that we find other ways of getting dopamine.

[00:05:40] So like sugar gives you a lot of dopamine. You know what else gives you a lot of dopamine criticizing yourself.

[00:05:47] What I find with all of my neuro diverse clients, including myself is that we have gotten like sort of dependent on using the self criticism cycle for creating dopamine.

[00:06:03] But you're like, see, oh gee, this doesn't feel good. It feels awful. Yes. And you have trained your brain to feel satisfied when they find themselves a problem.

[00:06:16] It is just like a Labrador retriever. You've trained it to go looking for problems that don't exist yet. Aren't applicable to you or don't need to be solved by you right now today.

[00:06:30] The thing about dopamine is you have to keep doing more and more to get the same fix. So it used to be before being like, oh, that's a problem and it gave you dopamine that was maybe like 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Now it's like, okay, I can't just do that.

[00:06:45] You need to solve a problem in order to get the dopamine. It's not just noticing it. A lot of the time it involves someone else or something else outside of you. For example, if you need like your partner to change something in order to solve the problem, aka in order to get your hit of dopamine, then criticizing your partner is a part of that.

[00:07:07] We want to point out the flaw to get them to change because why? Because then we feel that we solve the problem. Yay, us.

[00:07:18] But I'm sure you know criticizing your partner creates a lot more problems in the long run. You've been trained to look for problems and that gives yourself dopamine.

[00:07:30] It's why inside perfectionism optimizes you develop skills that give you the ability to create dopamine that works for you in more empowering and productive ways.

[00:07:44] It is not useful to criticize yourself. It's never useful. And with the black and white thinking, if you got that going on too, that doesn't mean that it's just like everything is a gold star and good job.

[00:07:56] No, it means that you can be the scientist with yourself. The solution to this is you develop new skills. You train your brain to look for things other than problems because it's just like a toddler. If you take a toy away, they will be very upset.

[00:08:16] Like you got to replace it with something else. Say find justice appealing. You know what I mean? It's just like if you've ever trained your kids to get off binkies, I'm not going to be like no binky, no blanket. I'm not tucking you in and I'm taking away the night light like you sub out. Maybe you still let them use the sippy cups.

[00:08:34] Another reason why is because you were trained professionally to always look for problems no matter how minor I certainly was trained this way as a public relations professional.

[00:08:50] I also see this in my clients that are doctors, architects, engineers, many professions that require advanced degrees or training. Part of that is they teach you to relentlessly search for what might be going wrong, what could go wrong and then try to solve for it or prevent it with PR.

[00:09:18] I was always on the hunt for the worst case scenario. I was always already solving for it and probably having like six meetings about it. This is why you may have a tendency in yourself to always look for what's wrong, not good enough or to criticize the solution isn't to leave your profession unless this is the sign that you've been looking for.

[00:09:44] It's being able to take control of your perfectionism so that you can still be a superstar in your career. It's like I can ride my Ferrari super fast on the PCH, that specific coast highway, like goes around Malbo.

[00:10:02] I drive three miles per hour in the neighborhood where I live. I drive like my kids live there because they do. Do you see what I mean? So for you with your Ferrari drive, for you to develop the skills of how to downshift and how to upshift and other tools to keep your mind busy because notice the solution and this analogy isn't like, oh, I drive my Ferrari on the freeway.

[00:10:26] And then I get in my go cart to just like cruise around Santa Monica. Now you can have the same car, you just drive it in different ways. It's same thing with yourself.

[00:10:39] So far we've covered your family, the brains need for dopamine, how you've trained your brain to look for problems, the profession you are in and now we are getting into number five.

[00:10:54] You criticize yourself because you think that is going to change the things so then you can feel better. The thought process behind it, like the subconscious thing is if you express this criticism, then maybe you yourself will change.

[00:11:10] You think that if you criticize, maybe you'll stop doing this but it's actually the opposite effect. It's like you criticize yourself and you are crippled. You don't want to do anything or maybe you do want to do stuff, but it's so crippling. It's debilitating.

[00:11:25] It sucks literally and figuratively. It sucks all your energy, and it's just a sucky, sucky experience that you do not need to tolerate for one more second. Okay, you are the problem here and you are the solution, which is like best news of your life. You just haven't been able to solve it yet because everyone else around you has been identifying the wrong problem.

[00:11:50] It's like your eyes being taped shut and instead of people saying, hey, there's duct tape taping your eye shut and you keep bonking into things. They're like, you need to change your shoes. We just need to keep changing your shoes.

[00:12:01] And that's what you've been doing which sounds silly and ridiculous but it's literally the exact same thing. And because you have misidentified the problem, you have missed out on the solution until now.

[00:12:14] The sixth reason the self criticism cycle can be a misguided desire for safety, a protection mechanism.

[00:12:25] Human brains, especially perfectionistic brains think that if we can just control everything around us, then we will be safe. Nothing will hurt us and we will get to feel awesome all the time.

[00:12:39] And then we won't have to feel any of the uncomfortable feelings. We don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

[00:12:46] We don't have to feel guilty. We don't have to feel inadequate. We don't have to hurt anyone else's feelings. Everyone will love us. No one will ever be upset with us.

[00:12:56] There won't be any kind of tension. We will not get stressed out because the world will be exactly according to our very specific and detailed expectations because we are trying to control every little inch, especially the stuff that we really don't like.

[00:13:15] And we want everything to be the way that we like it. How this shows up for you, the way you like it is your someone where you're like, I need things to be done a very exact way.

[00:13:23] I need things to be done a certain way. I need them to be done in a certain order. You want your partner to help and clean but then he sweeps the garage the wrong way.

[00:13:32] So then you get in a fight about it and then you're like, I'll just do it. And then you feel like a martyr because you're like, I have to do everything around here.

[00:13:39] And it's like, well, yeah, you do when you take that approach. If this is you, if you're like, yeah, I feel very uneasy.

[00:13:48] Safety is what it is underneath. It could just be like I could just get really anxious, which is something that we work on inside of perfectionism optimized.

[00:13:56] You will learn how to speak the language of you, which means that you stop mislabeling things.

[00:14:00] 50% of the time what you are calling anxiety is not anxiety. It's just that you were never taught how to identify what the sensations in your body mean and what the emotion is that is attached to them.

[00:14:11] And so it's just like anxiety anger, excitement, happy, nice, fun.

[00:14:16] You're only using three ingredients when like there's millions of ingredients that you can use to cook a recipe.

[00:14:22] The solution for this one is to bring your safety in house having to control everyone around you and everything go a certain way or you get super anxious.

[00:14:33] What will happen is you will become addicted as someone who works with celebrities as a perfectionism coach and also worked as a public relations professional and publicist.

[00:14:45] It does not end well. If you're a celebrity, though the number one cause of death is suicide.

[00:14:50] You need to control everything to be a certain way that is not a way to live. It's just a way to die to kill yourself softly.

[00:14:56] So if that's you, please, please, please get some support.

[00:15:00] So safety the way that you do that is that you build a titanium foundation within yourself.

[00:15:05] You make it so that you take charge of your life.

[00:15:07] You no longer need to control everything and everyone around you when you feel like you're in charge.

[00:15:12] The only reason why we do that is when we feel out of control on the inside so we need to control everything around us.

[00:15:20] We feel that we don't have control over our anxiety or our emotions or our depression or our perfectionism.

[00:15:27] And so then we control everything outside of us, but like it's so much easier like in funner if you're just like, oh actually I could just like be in charge of me.

[00:15:37] And then all these other things just become table stakes and it's like, yeah, like you can have preferences for things.

[00:15:42] But it's not like it feels like, you know, a physical assault on you if the car isn't loaded to your exact specifications.

[00:15:51] And then number seven is power dynamics.

[00:15:55] If you felt powerless when you were the one being criticized so that could be in school, that could be with a parental figure.

[00:16:07] That could be with a past romantic relationship.

[00:16:12] It could be a boss when you go through an experience of being in relationship where you are criticized and you felt really powerless when it happened.

[00:16:23] I'll speak from experience. I would have to stand naked in front of my biological mother until I left home at 14 before any time I bathed myself so that she could walk around me and to point out flaws.

[00:16:42] My stomach is to this, the lines on my forehead.

[00:16:46] You know, I get you Botox Courtney love but the thing is that it doesn't last forever.

[00:16:51] Yes, it was constant, but also I was naked.

[00:16:54] I felt extremely powerless in that situation when you have had that experience where you are criticized a lot and the emphasis on felt powerless because what perfectionist tend to do is

[00:17:09] well, I could have just left or I should have whatever what matters is how you feel.

[00:17:14] If you felt powerless because there's no argument with that if you felt powerless in that situation, what is happening at an unconscious level is an association with when you are the criticizer, you are the powerful one.

[00:17:28] So therefore by you being the criticizer, then you become the powerful one.

[00:17:34] You're unconscious wants to reenact that in the same context.

[00:17:39] You'll notice that if someone's criticizing you a lot of times you want to criticize them back or in relationships or romantic relationships, you can tend to reenact this dynamic not because you want to be the criticizer.

[00:17:56] It's because you want to feel powerful and you think that when you critique someone when you're the criticizer, you feel powerful.

[00:18:02] Of course none of this is conscious but this is how these perfectionistic patterns can show up.

[00:18:09] So if this is you, if you're like holy smoke, CLG, you've freaking nailed it.

[00:18:15] Then the solve for this is to get you empowered to get you to take charge so that you can feel powerful in ways that are not demeaning to yourself.

[00:18:28] This is mind blowing, you can feel very powerful while treating yourself humanely.

[00:18:34] I will be back tomorrow with the eighth wonder of the self criticism cycle.

[00:18:39] Listen up, taking charge of your perfectionism is so much easier than you have been led to believe whether you want to stop playing out worst case scenarios in your head or be joyfully present ambitious again, you don't need more rigid rules,

[00:18:55] guesswork or hard work and perfectionism recovery.

[00:19:00] You need a framework that helps you understand and most importantly, rewire your perfectionistic habits from the inside out.

[00:19:09] It starts inside of perfectionism optimized.

[00:19:12] Besides the obvious mental health and wellness benefits rewiring your perfectionism is the fastest way to figure out what's really underneath your perfectionistic patterns.

[00:19:23] This radically different proven proprietary approach helps you succeed by dropping the contempt and judgment that blocks change.

[00:19:33] Discover how to trust yourself, take control of your world and feel truly empowered to own your perfectionism instead of being owned by it.

[00:19:45] Head on over to Courtney Love Gavin.com and start your transformation today.