Control and controllers

It is impossible to control life, including most of what happens to you and how people will react to you. If you can give up the need to always control situations, outcomes and other people, you will be much more content, balanced and happier in yourself. If you have been described as a perfectionist, then you could well be a controller. Do you tend to agree with the idiom ‘If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?’ Yes? Then you’re probably a controller.

Or perhaps you’re very good at controlling yourself? Do you fanatically count calories or exercise minutes? Are you a workaholic? Or maybe you organise your waking hours into a tight immovable schedule? Or perhaps you keep everything super clean? If you become too rigid about the way things are done at the expense of flexibility and spontaneity, then you’re also going to make yourself unhappy.

Controlling behaviours are a sign of anxiety in overdrive. Your demand for perfection and fear of failure may mean you never find peace. Therapy can help you identify your controlling behaviours and help you find ways to ‘let things be’, which is one of the routes to inner calm.