Why Trying To Control Everything In Our Lives Can Be Harmful
People love certainties And by certainty we do not only mean knowing with certainty what will happen to our lives in the future, but we also seek certainty even in the smallest things. To make this human tendency evident, let’s think about it the other way around: what do we do when No Do we have control of something? In effect, we become impatient or anxious, even if resolving the situation is completely out of our capabilities or the matter is even too serious.
We have all experienced firsthand how unpleasant it feels to try to control some dimension of our lives and not succeed. However, the reasons why trying to control everything can be very harmful to people are often unknown, as well as the reasons why we fall into this way of behaving, two knots that we will try to unravel in this article.
Control: why do we need to be certain about everything?
The first thing we have to know about control is that, in itself, it is completely logical and expected that people tend to seek certainties. It is true that not everything can be reduced to biology, but our phylogenetic evolutionary history—that is, as a human species—has been determined by the development of a series of capabilities that our most primitive ancestors have put into practice for survival, such as being capable of using language and the concepts it provides to categorize events in the world, communicate with others, make inferences about reality or carry out highly elaborate reasoning with the least possible expenditure of resources.
To this day, the dynamism with which our mind operates continues to be a great advantage. Survival (in a literal sense) is not usually at stake in everyday life. However, we still need planning capacity to ensure punctuality for an appointment, to organize our study time before that exam that is so important to us; even to know how to assertively tell a friend that we feel uncomfortable about a situation that occurred between both of us.
As we saw, wanting to be in control is normal, and in many situations it is also functional to our lives. Nevertheless, The search for control of the events that occur around us can become a recurring and problematic mechanism Carrying out actions in order to control an external situation could imply that a person has difficulty tolerating uncertainty, that is, not allowing themselves to feel the physical sensations or thoughts that not knowing the result of something entails, and consequently leading to carry out behaviors to eliminate that discomfort.
The problem is that uncertainty cannot be completely eliminated. In fact, it is part of life: the circumstances that surround us are just that, circumstances, and they can become completely different situations overnight. The lie that people intolerant of uncertainty believe is that by having control of the events around them they can feel more secure. In other words, increasing certainty will decrease uncertainty.
This, perhaps, at first may be so. However, another new situation will always appear that generates uncertainty—and, why not, fear, unpleasant thoughts or anxiety—so eradicating our emotions and thoughts does not seem like a good idea. In fact, The only thing we will achieve is to reduce our tolerance for uncertain situations Furthermore, it is possible that, in the attempt to control the external events in our life, other areas of our life such as our interpersonal relationships may be harmed, or that unpleasant experiences may intensify. This unhelpful strategy is usually a consequence of trying to avoid encountering those uncomfortable experiences that occur inside our mind, whether they are emotions, thoughts or images.
To illustrate this, let’s imagine that Mariana is going to a birthday party where she knows that her ex-partner is very likely to be there. It’s normal for her to feel anxious about it. She has little tolerance for uncertainty, so, instead of allowing herself to experience the discomfort that the situation produces, she decides to call her friend Sofia to reassure herself that she will also go to the party.
It is the second time he has called her, the first was this morning, and he had already told her that he would go. In other words, she seeks to take control of the situation. If Sofía answered her quickly, Mariana would be calmer, at least for a while. However, this time Sofia does not answer. At this point, Mariana feels more anxious than before, which causes her a share of previously unforeseen added suffering. In addition, different areas of her life would be affected. For example, regarding her ties, Sofía could get a little angry because of Mariana’s insistence on the phone; or by ruminating about the problem, she might not have exercised that morning, something very important to her.
Put control aside
The behaviors in which this tendency to want to control everything is manifested are very varied. They can sometimes be observed in academic settings when some people have difficulty working as a team. They believe that by doing everything themselves they will ensure that they do not get a bad grade (since, if we go a little deeper, getting a bad grade would involve experiencing normal but unpleasant emotions, and not everyone is willing to do that), or in people who They reevaluate their decisions repeatedly because they believe that this could alleviate uncertainty.
As we have developed, trying to control everything in our lives is harmful as it leads to greater worry and discomfort. Therefore, the first step to face this situation is to record under what circumstances we carry out this type of behavior.
Then we should evaluate What different way of acting can we put into practice instead of resorting to the “old habits” that were aimed at controlling The last step will be to put it into practice, starting with the simplest behaviors. However, it is important to note that this process is not always easy or linear, so consulting with a mental health professional could significantly help this process.
The importance of distinctions
Since the idea that we can control everything on the way out is, deep down, a mirage, We must learn to specify how far our room for maneuver goes in facing the needs we face, in order to set realistic goals. That is why in coaching these beliefs are worked on from what we call distinctions: deep reflections on where the concepts on which we build our lives begin and where they end. This is how we focus on some terms with the aim of expanding people’s possibilities of action.
The idea is not to feel bad for not achieving ill-defined and too abstract objectives, in which projects that contradict each other coincide and that consequently do not allow us to have a feeling of progress in our personal development.
