How to deal with your fear of losing control of your life

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Do you keep a diary? And if you are leading, how? Sit down at the table in the evening and scrupulously write down plans for the next days, making sure that all notes correspond to the dates of the month? Or do you open a notebook on the first page that comes across and hastily scribble the necessary information, and then you do not remember where and what you wrote down? Pay attention - your attitude to life depends very much on how strict the framework you set for yourself on a daily basis. If the day is scheduled every minute, this, of course, mobilizes and helps to do more things, but sometimes this approach literally drives us into a trap: making sometimes impossible plans, we get upset, consider ourselves lazy, incapable of anything, and, most importantly, we are afraid of losing control over life.

We seem to sweep aside accidents, do not believe in unexpected circumstances, because we are panicky afraid that we will not be able to act in them correctly.

Living exclusively in accordance with the entries in diaries, notebooks and organizers, we create the illusion that absolutely everything is under our strict control. And the worst thing for us is to lose this control. We seem to sweep aside accidents, do not believe in unexpected circumstances, because we are panicky afraid that we will not be able to act in them correctly. In the end, the constant desire to program our life on a daily basis plays a cruel joke with us - reality cannot be driven into the framework that we ourselves come up with, and sometimes this understanding hurts on the head.

If you feel that in your inclination to write everything down (even the most banal things, such as "washing the dishes"), to plan a day, week or month literally minute by minute and sincerely experience when reality diverges from your idea of it, there is something unhealthy, then you the following should be understood:

You rob yourself of spontaneity

You make your life boring. It boils down only to "done-not done", and you leave no room for chance at all. But the most beautiful things, as a rule, happen to us when we allow ourselves to be a little unpredictable, when we do what not only others, but even ourselves, do not expect from us.

And, besides, you do not at all think about what palette of feelings and emotions you are depriving, writing in your diary that from 5 to 7 you have household chores, and from 7 to 9 you have a walk in the park. It turns out that from 5 o'clock you will be tense and focused, but only from 7 o'clock you will allow yourself to relax. By controlling your own time, you also control your feelings, sometimes depriving them of their novelty.

You can't control everything

Neither weather conditions, nor the state of human health, nor the dollar exchange rate are subject to you. In any case, you will adjust your plans to what is happening around. Therefore, it is much easier to abandon the idea of total control over your own life, realizing that there are things in it that will always depend on someone or something else.

The paradox is that those who seek to take control of their lives make more and more mistakes.

More often the mistakes are made by those who control their lives entirely

The main reason why we try to live according to the plan is the fear of making a mistake, doing something wrong, not being in time, not achieving what we want. But the paradox is that those who seek to take control of life are mistaken even more often and more. The point is the inability to control everything and everyone. As we said, there are things that are absolutely beyond our control. And when faced with them, a person also faces the destruction of the illusion of his own omnipotence and takes one wrong step after another.

Wanting to save yourself from anxiety, you worry even more

For almost everyone, trying to take control of a situation is a way of keeping oneself out of anxiety. “I control everything, nothing unexpected can happen,” such people think and are very mistaken. Thoughts add much more anxiety: “Is everything really under control? Am I missing anything? We still need to check if something goes wrong. As a result - the inability to relax, leading to chronic stress.

You oppress yourself with your plans

Perhaps on a weekend you want to crawl under the covers so that no one touches you, does not ask for anything, and does not even start conversations. But according to the plan - cleaning, going to the grocery store, visiting my aunt, etc. Again, no relaxation. You look at your diary and understand that you simply have to do everything that is written there, because it’s so right, but the soul asks for another. Again, the mood is at zero, you feel depressed and depressed.

There is nothing wrong with moderate planning.

There is nothing wrong with moderate planning. Surrendering only to chance is quite irresponsible, you have to do your own thing today and tomorrow. But here's a fanatical desire to cross out the points of the plan one by one, without giving yourself a respite for spontaneity, can bring stress to anyone. Especially when chance intervenes in this deletion. And this happens most often with such people.