You can’T control your life, no matter how hard you try

How’s your relationship with control? 

As someone that works with high achieving leaders, control and more specifically the illusion of control is a rich area of exploration. 

You see, many Type A leaders believe they have control. At the slightest sign of any loss of this apparent control they do everything to try to gain it back. This process and the underlying belief is so often the source of high degrees of stress and anxiety. 

Anyone that has experienced an illness, a death of a family member or a pandemic for that matter, begins to understand that control is simply an illusion. 

In fact, a beautiful realization from this time in history is the appreciation of how little control we actually have. 

The work for me and for so many, is the process of becoming comfortable with this fact, with our ultimate lack of control. 

To know that we don’t have CONTROL and to trust ourselves enough to believe that we can handle whatever comes our way is powerful. To trust enough to not fight the lack of control, but rather to embrace it is freeing. 

This doesn’t mean we give up, we do nothing, stay in our pjs all day (ok ok pjs all day right now is totally acceptable ). 

It means we surrender to what is and what is to come. It means we come from a place of openness and service. It means we let go of expectations, shoulds and have to’s. 

Instead we build trust, acceptance and openness with ourselves. We build resiliency and confidence knowing that we don’t need control. We simply need enough faith in ourselves to know that we can take it, whatever IT might be. 

What have you noticed about your relationship with control?