When control starts controlling you

The need to control every outcome can quietly destroy our happiness

Control feels like safety. If we can plan meticulously enough, foresee every problem, manage every person and get rid of every uncertainty, maybe nothing would catch us off guard. But control makes promises it can’t keep. It tells us that if we do the right things, life owes us the right outcome.

But it doesn’t. We can influence the process and control our progress, by preparing, deciding and responding. What we can’t do is force reality to work with us just because we want it to. The issue starts when a healthy desire for control makes us intolerable to anything we don’t choose.

Rats & Cocaine

In one experiment, rats were trained to give cocaine to themselves. Each rat was paired with a second rat that received the same dose at the same time but had no control over its delivery. Even though the rats received matched exposure, the cocaine proved to be more lethal to the rats that could not predict or control when it arrived.

The experiment can’t tell us directly how human happiness works. But it exposes something researchers have seen over and over: an aversive event can become even more stressful when it feels uncontrollable.

A similar pattern appeared in a classic nursing-home study by psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin. Some residents were given the opportunity to make more decisions about their daily lives and take responsibility for a plant. Others received similar amenities, but the staff made more of the decisions for them.

The residents given greater personal responsibility became more active and alert and reported greater well-being. A later follow-up also found a big difference in the mortality rates between the groups.

Even small choices appeared to matter; not because choosing a plant gives someone command over their life, but because it restores a sense of purpose.

Studies like these suggest that people have this deep-seeded motivation to feel that their actions matter.

Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan say we all need three things to thrive: a sense of competence, connection with others and autonomy. The crucial word here is autonomy, not control. Autonomy means having a say in your own life. It doesn’t mean controlling everyone around you or being able to guarantee how things will turn out.

Psychology says that we need autonomy, not dominance. We need to feel that our choices matter. We don’t need every event, person or result to bend to those choices.

So if control feels good, why would seeking more of it make us miserable?

Because a sense of control and the demand for certainty are not the same thing. Control says, “my actions matter.” Unhealthy control says, “my actions must create the outcome I want.” The first helps us get through life. The second turns every surprise into a personal attack.

Psychologist Ellen Langer called this the illusion of control: the belief that our behavior gives us power over outcomes that are really determined by chance.

In one of her experiments, people valued a lottery ticket more when they bought it themselves. Choosing the ticket has nothing to do with improving their odds, but it made the ticket feel more promising. That feeling of participation had been mistaken for actual influence.

We do versions of this constantly. We create a great plan, follow through the steps and start to feel like we can make it to the end goal. But when we don’t cross the finish line, disappointment sets in, and we feel cheated.

Most of us know the feeling. Someone changes the plan, the restaurant is more crowded than expected or a little delay throws the schedule off— and suddenly the entire experience feels ruined. Our discomfort isn’t caused by the change itself. It comes from the idea that the change wasn’t supposed to happen.

The more tunnel vision our expectations become, the more ways life has to let us down. Inconveniences start to feel like a personal attack rather than ordinary obstacles of every day life.

Why Controlling People Backfires.

Trying to control people often causes the exact behavior we were hoping to prevent. Psychologists call this reactance. When people feel like their freedom is being taken away, their natural instinct is to push back — even against a perfectly reasonable request — simply because it felt more like a command rather than a choice.

Something I learned with experience — in any relationship — you either have control over someone, or you have their love.But you don’t have both. Meaning, you can have someone’s obedience without having their trust. Control produces compliance, but it doesn’t produce love.

A partner who feels ordered to stop smoking may defend the behavior more aggressively; not necessarily because they want another cigarette, but because they want ownership of the decision.

Goals should not become an obsessive passion.

Psychologist Robert Vallerand says — harmonious passion remains in balance with the rest of life. We invest a lot of our time into the goal, but we’re still able to break away from it. Obsessive passion becomes entangled with our identity or self-worth, making it much harder to detach from, even when the steps to the goal begins hurting us.

Being invested in the end goal isn’t the same thing as being ambitious. The shift happens when the goal stops being something you freely go after and becomes something you feel compelled to obey. You think you’re taking healthy steps to revolve around the goal. But little do you know, the goal starts rearranging your life instead.

When you’re less set on a specific end result, you’ll be in a better position when it comes to the actual outcome. People with a loose grip on control are better prepared for the unexpected.

This isn’t to say that ‘going with the flow’ is the better option. Setting goals and taking steps towards those goals is necessary. The problem is not pursuing an outcome. It is becoming so attached to it that we can no longer adapt. We have to learn to appreciate progress, rather than avoid the uncertainties of life.

Uncertainty doesn’t always diminish happiness.

Uncertainty is not one of life’s natural pleasures. And bad uncertainty can be agonizing. But research suggests that uncertainty amplifies emotion rather than just destroying it. When the underlying event is positive, not knowing everything can prolong curiosity, anticipation and pleasure.

Certainty gives us that closure. Uncertainty keeps us in limbo.

Some people are afraid of the unknown, but that’s what keeps life spicy. Do you skip all the pages in a book and head straight to the end? Wouldn’t knowing how it all ends put a damper on your happiness and excitement?

Healthy control is not the ability to make life follow the script. It is the ability to remain ourselves when it doesn’t.

We can choose our values, effort, boundaries and responses. We cannot choose every delay, rejection, accident, loss or change of heart. Happiness depends partly on knowing the difference.

The irony is that control becomes dangerous the moment we refuse to release it. We set out to control life — and slowly, quietly, the need for control begins controlling us.