Step 4 in undoing burnout and anxiety: Letting go of control
I thought I had to be in control of everything to guarantee the best outcomes, but that's not always the case
[Today’s post is finally the last in my series about overcoming burnout and anxiety. With detailed thoughts about Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 of overcoming anxiety in previous posts.]
I can’t believe I’m concluding my first major series on Substack today. Overcoming severe, crippling anxiety was such a turning point for me last year, and my life has been so much better for it. I’m passionate about sharing my own experiences as a way of inspiring and helping others to achieve more balance in their own mental health journey. So for those of you that have been following along, thank you for being here.
Each step of overcoming severe anxiety and burnout was really hard. But today’s topic in particular (learning how to let go of control and accept help from others) is probably the one I have to actively remind myself about the most in my daily life. Not being in control doesn’t come naturally to me, and it has been one of the hardest (and best) things to slowly change about myself. But continued practice of letting go of control, learning to trust others, and adapting to a wider range of outcomes has made my life feel so much more balanced in the long run because I’ve realized I don’t need to do it all to be a good worker, mom, friend, and person. And I definitely don’t need to do it all on my own.
For anyone that struggles with letting go of control too, I’m about to share the process of why I felt the need to be in control, how I prioritized what to loosen control over, and what I learned from my experimentation in letting go of control. The whole process was painful but so worth it.
Why do I always feel the need to be in control?
I’m absolutely a recovering control addict. I used to want to control and perfect most aspects of my life. I felt this need and burden to do everything and often control situations to guarantee good (or predictable) outcomes. Or to maintain the appearance that I had everything under control, that I had my shit together, and that I was unphased (even though in reality, the stress was slowly eating away at me). I didn’t ask for help often because I didn’t want to inconvenience others, have people think I wasn’t good or capable enough to handle something on my own, or sadly, I didn’t trust people to handle things like I would.
I’d subconsciously try to control big and small situations, and I didn’t realize the extent to which the burden was building up and would eventually burn me out. For some reason, I felt the need to be solely responsible for big things like planning vacations (which I liked doing but also stressed me out when dealing with complex itineraries) and making decisions about much of Mara’s upbringing (her school, sleep, overall schedule, etc.). I also felt the need to control small things like always deciding where my family or friends should eat. Or getting irritated with my husband, Tommy, if he didn’t put the dishes back where they should be in the kitchen cabinet.
After much therapy and self-reflection, I realized a lot of my need for control stemmed from my core (and false) beliefs from Step 1 (Confronting my anxieties). Beliefs of not being good enough, being afraid of “failure”, and a belief of not being able to recover in bad situations (likely a result of my upbringing and past negative experiences). Pre-kids, this controlling part of me definitely stressed me out at times. But I often found ways to manage through it, control most situations to the best of my ability, and get shit done well on my own (usually with minimal consequence, except the crazy stress I’d feel in the moment).
However, after having Mara, these perfectionist tendencies and the need to be in control exponentially contributed to my burnout and made me short with those around me (especially with those that I loved the most). Life can generally be unpredictable but motherhood with a very young child adds a whole other level of unpredictability. Trying to control it all was an impossible balancing act. When I started therapy last year, I finally acknowledged it wasn’t sustainable to actively control and perfect every part of my life without negatively impacting my own mental wellbeing and those around me.
Picking and choosing my battles: Prioritizing what to control (and what to depend on other people for) based on my values and priorities
With the help of my therapist, we talked about the need to practice letting go of control, at least for things lower on my priority list. So that I’d have more time and energy to invest in things that energize me. Part of letting go of control also involved challenging a lot of my pre-conditioned beliefs and assumptions in moments where I felt the need for control. For example, if something didn’t go my way, would I really not be able to recover? If something didn’t go according to plan, would people really think that I’m not “good enough”? If I wasn’t in control, would something definitely fail?
To determine what aspects of life I should “let go of control”, I used my framework of values as a starting point. As a reminder, my highest ranked values are parenting, marriage, personal growth, family and hobbies, while relatively lower ones are friends, work and physical wellbeing.
Putting this into practice, because Parenting is my highest priority, I wanted to continue having a lot of control over many of these decisions (with the support of Tommy). Important decisions like what school Mara goes to and what types of values she should grow up with mean a lot to me. On the other hand, Friendships are lower, relatively, on my list. Lol not because friends are not important to me. Rather, it’s a dimension I’ve invested in a lot throughout my life and my friendships are fairly strong. I used to be one of the primary people in my friend groups, initiating conversations and planning hangouts. But maybe that’s something I could let go of a bit because I’m trusting that I have other dependable friends that would also reach out and plan things. While I carve out more time for me to focus on other priorities.
Experiments in letting go of control
Starting with the areas that were lower on my priority list, here are a couple examples of how I practiced letting go of control. I also included the outcomes so you could see if there were consequences. Spoiler alert - there weren’t really any negative outcomes.
Friendships:
Example: Pre-kids, I used to be the main planner of most social gatherings and travel. I researched and made crazy itineraries for trips my friends and I would go on, made a ton of backup restaurant reservations so that we had options, etc. Part of me still does this to an extent but not with the same level of urgency and intensity as before due to lack of time. Now when planning vacations with friends, I often take a back seat and let go of control because I know I have other competent friends that take charge (lol sorry to my friends, you know who you are, I appreciate you soooooo much). Or if no clear leader emerges, I’d have confidence we’d figure it out together and have a good time no matter what.
Outcome: There have now been multiple trips where I’m not the lead person planning. And I’ve confirmed that my closest friends are incredibly proactive in choosing locations to travel to, booking lodging, and even having options for activities. So that I often just show up and have a good time (of course, I always offer to help with anything still needed). I used to think that trip itineraries had to be filled with the most popular restaurants and tourist attractions. With age, I’ve realized that my primary goal of going on trips with friends is to spend time together and have fun. The itineraries are usually not exactly what I would’ve planned. But I save a lot of time and headache throughout the process, and we ALWAYS achieve our primary goal of having fun and enjoying each other’s company. Letting go of control of planning and accepting help from friends still feel a bit odd to me. But the outcomes of every trip have been great so far with less involvement from me.
Work
Example: As many of you know, work burnt me out in 2021-2022, and it’s a main impetus for starting this Substack. In terms of fulfillment, work is relatively low on my values list, and I primarily work to provide a good life for myself and my family. To reduce the stress I got from work, I wanted to find a way to let go of the notion of having to be the best at work. I wanted to be okay with being “good enough” at work (and not my old, overachieving self) for my own mental wellbeing. So I decided to experiment with putting in less effort at work over the last year.
Outcome: You can read this article for more, but I was able to put in less effort at work and my performance ratings have actually remained constant (to-date, fingers crossed).
Even though I primarily focused on letting go of control of things lower on my priority list, I also experimented loosening control over some aspects of my priorities because there’s no way I can do everything.
Parenting:
Example: One thing I actively did not control or actively participate in was planning Mara’s group birthday party with her classmates. Another parent from her school had a great idea to have a combined birthday party for kids with summer birthdays, so that we could plan together and save on time and cost with one event. Not kidding you - every other kid’s parent(s) signed up to contribute to something in advance (ex. go buy food, buy or make goodie bags). By the time I volunteered, everything was already handled so I didn’t do any prep work.
Outcome: Compared to other parents who did all the prep work, all I did was show up for the event, help set up that day, and help chip in for the expenses evenly. I did feel a bit guilty, but despite me not doing much, Mara and the other kids had a great time, and the other parents are still super nice to us and good friends of ours at school.
Personal Growth & Hobbies:
Example: Writing these posts is part of mental wellness and growth for me, and it’s also something I really enjoy as a hobby. I had originally started this newsletter in February with the intent of sharing something every week (not impossible, but wow, I was ambitious!). When I started my new job in March, I found that ramping up at work took a lot of time and I had to let go of control of my original plans and be okay with writing less. Even though I greatly feared I wouldn’t be able to get back in a rhythm of writing.
Outcome: There was a period of a few months where I didn’t write much. Now that I’m ramped up at work and I’ve developed a routine to have more personal time, I’ve picked up writing again. Sure, I’m a bit disappointed that I did not share as much content as I would have liked, but writing still helps me grow and brings me joy despite not doing it as frequently as I originally intended.
Family:
Example: Earlier this year, I was super stressed about planning my in-laws' 50th anniversary. Tommy’s parents wanted 100+ people to celebrate with them on a Saturday in September. To me, that sounded like planning a mini-wedding, and we all wanted them to have the best party possible. So months in advance, I hustled to inquire about multiple venues and caterers so that we could lock those important details. But it ended up stressing me out when I was around Tommy. No one else in the family seemed to be hustling like I was, and I also had many other things on my plate. Tommy ultimately got really frustrated and told me to let go of control and that he’d handle it.
Outcome: Tommy took control and ran it his own way. He didn’t lock the venue until a month before the event (lol, crazy to think that I was stressing out 5 months before), and invites were sent 3 weeks before the party. But guess what? The turnout was amazing, and the family had such a wonderful time (what we wanted to optimize for). Overall, it was a great success, executed in a fraction of the time I would have spent on it, and I didn’t need to control it.
So what did I learn in my journey of letting go of control?
Here are the biggest lessons that I learned:
Good or decent outcomes can still happen even when I’m not in control, trying to perfect every detail (as illustrated in every example above). Things may not be done exactly how I’d do them, but they can still turn out well. There’s always more than one acceptable outcome for most situations in life.
Other people can be dependable and get things done, if I let them (in my Parenting, Family, and Friends examples). And accepting help from people often doesn’t negatively change their opinion of me.
I still often get anxiety from not being in control or not having things go according to plan. But the more I practice letting go of control, the more confidence (and experience) I have in those situations to reduce my anxiety by reminding myself that everything will be okay or that I can recover.
Actively letting go of control and internalizing the realities above have made me understand that my beliefs were often skewed or inaccurate. I had all these irrational fears that I would fail, that I couldn’t recover, or that other people would think I’m wasn’t “good enough” if I wasn’t in control of a situation. It’s been incredibly uncomfortable, but the continued practice of letting go of control in different situations has given me confidence that things usually don’t fail miserably when I’m not in control. I can even ask (and trust in) other people for help, and it’s not a sign of weakness or not being “good enough”.
I’ve worked really hard to internalize these lessons, and these realizations have been mentally liberating. It often still feels unnatural for me to take a backseat in certain situations, but knowing that I don’t need to constantly be in control to have decent to good outcomes has made daily life feel more balanced, allowing me to focus on fewer but more important things in my life.
That concludes my series about overcoming burnout and anxiety, which involved confronting my anxieties (Step 1), identifying what’s meaningful in my life (Step 2), creating habits around things that matter (Step 3), and learning how to let go of control (Step 4). I hope it was helpful to you or at least interesting to hear about my experience addressing severe anxiety. And I have nothing but optimism for anyone trying to improve their situation. It’s not easy, but it’s possible if you put it in the work.
I honestly think about all these concepts on an everyday basis, so I’ll have many future posts that build on the concepts of analyzing my anxieties, aligning my values, making time for self-care, and being okay with letting go of control. And I look forward to continuing to share my journey with you.