Being a control freak isn’t all bad. Indeed, if you’re a control freak, you’re probably super competent and super efficient. You have high standards. You’re a go-getter. You get things done right the first time.
Plus, when things are spiraling, a little extra control can be healthy coping. If you’ve lost your job, strict structure and discipline around finding another one is good. If your child is seriously ill, knowing every inch of her medical chart is a natural reaction. For me, after core-shaking disasters like Hurricane Katrina or Sandy Hook, I find myself getting strict about exercise. It took me awhile to make the connection, but I realized that when the world makes me feel small and helpless, I cope by literally trying to be strong.
But of course, there’s a dark side to control. Complete control can never be achieved, so you can never relax. Relaxation, including sleep, feels unproductive or weak, which leaves you exhausted. No one else can reach your standards, which leaves you lonely. And when forced to collaborate, without quite meaning to, you use a collection of sharp, pointy tools—criticism, judgment, and micromanaging—to keep your anxiety at bay.
That’s right: anxiety. Control is a cover for anxiety. Here’s how it works: anxiety is caused by uncertainty. You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s unclear if your decisions were exactly right. There’s no guarantee that everything will be okay. So being a control freak is the attempt to eliminate all uncertainty. Scratch a control freak, and underneath, you’ll find fear. Knowing that you’re just scared might help people who love you but roll their eyes at you feel more compassionate, but it also might help to put down the label-maker.
If that’s not enough, here are five things to try before you make a list of New Year’s resolutions ... for someone else.
Tip #1: Expand your definition of “control.” We can’t control whether we live or die, but we can control exactly what our family eats, which model lawnmower is the right one to buy, or which towel is appropriate to dry the dog. This kind of control is called “primary control,” and it’s defined as “the attempt to win mastery by striving for goals and asserting one’s will upon circumstances.” This is what most people mean when they think of being in control.
But there’s also something called “secondary control,” which is adapting to the things that can’t be controlled. Call it acceptance, call it reframing, call it making sense of things, call it making lemonade out of lemons. In short, primary control is changing the world to fit yourself, while secondary control is changing yourself to fit the world.
According to a recent study out of Johns Hopkins, both primary and secondary control go along with feeling happy, but only primary control also goes along with being unhappy. What’s more, secondary control was associated more strongly with life satisfaction.
In another study in the journal Developmental Psychology, researchers examined more than 350 people who were losing their vision due to macular degeneration, a progressive and irreversible condition. The researchers checked in with each participant at 6-month intervals over two years and found that those who shifted their control strategies from primary to secondary had higher happiness and lower depression. As their ability to see and get around independently declined, using secondary control strategies went along with better well-being.
Now, the benefits of secondary control don’t mean you have to morph into a go-with-the-flow hippie. It just means that both parts of the classic serenity prayer are correct—so try some of each and have the wisdom to know the difference.
Tip #2: Build up your ability to put up with imperfection. Look up “control freak” in a thesaurus, and you’ll find “perfectionist” as a synonym. When things aren’t done perfectly, it’s stressful. So in order to reduce your stress, you intervene. It “works,” but done over and over, keeping things perfect is exhausting.
But more importantly, intervening keeps you from learning that you can wait out your stress. So next time you get the urge to straighten the shoe rack or re-do your kid’s science project, wait ten minutes. The first couple minutes will be uncomfortable, but then it will get easier. As the minutes tick by, intervening will seem less urgent. This is called “distress tolerance,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s enduring distress with the knowledge that what goes up, must eventually come down, even if you don't de-fuse your stress by correcting your partner's grammar.
Tip #3: Delegate. This is a hard one. At first, letting someone else be in charge will feel weird and wrong. And things won’t get done the way you prefer. But guess what? They will get done, and it won’t be a disaster. You probably won’t like it, but it won’t be as bad as you think. With your newfound distress tolerance, you’ll know the urge to intervene is temporary.
To supersize this tip, shift it to “delegate and don’t critique or re-do.” So try it out: let someone else drive and refrain from giving turn-by-turn directions. Don’t re-load the dishwasher after your helpful houseguest leaves. Make your kids fold their own laundry in the name of gaining life skills and don’t touch the result. Your brain will learn that the world doesn’t end. And that’s better than any perfect pile of laundry.
Tip #4: Consider how it comes across. Re-packing your partner’s suitcase, over-helping with your kid’s homework, or other controlling behaviors show two things, neither of them particularly good. First, it shows you don’t trust them. Second, it shows you think they’re not capable. If you’re the only one who can do things right, that means everyone else does things wrong, which doesn’t exactly come across as supportive to family or welcoming to guests.
Tip #5: Get older. This is an easy one. A study from over 20 years ago found that as we age, we naturally gain greater flexibility and more satisfaction with life in the present. What’s more, as we get older, our awareness that we can’t control everything grows, and our tendency towards control freakishness shrinks.
To wrap it all up, control is a natural human need; indeed, not being able to control anything in your life would be a one-way ticket to depression. But it can go too far. So next time you have the urge to say, “I can show you the right way to do that,” remind yourself that everyone has their own best way of doing things. Allow another way, and not only will your brain learn it isn’t a disaster and that others can be capable, you might just learn a new way to, say, change a tire or fold a fitted sheet.
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