Your Controlling Habits

Exercises & Practices

Is This Me?

These questions aren't a test. Just notice your internal response — especially the ones that make you defensive.

• I have a hard time relaxing unless I know everything is handled — and handled the way I think it should be.
• People close to me have called me controlling, and my first reaction was to defend myself rather than consider it.
• When someone makes a choice I disagree with, I can't let it go. I keep bringing it up, offering advice, or finding ways to steer them back.
• I go out of my way to make people like me, keep the peace, or avoid anyone being upset with me — and I feel panicked when it doesn't work.
• I give advice people didn't ask for, and I get hurt or frustrated when they don't take it.
• I set ultimatums but don't follow through, because the real goal was to pressure them into changing — not to enforce a boundary.
• When my kids, spouse, or coworkers don't do things the way I would, I step in and do it myself.
• I monitor, check up on, or keep tabs on people I'm worried about — their phone, their spending, their choices — even when they haven't asked for my involvement.
• I'm exhausted from trying to hold everything and everyone together, but I don't know how to stop.
• Everyone comes to me because I'm "the responsible one" — and I secretly like being needed, even though it's draining.

Questions Worth Sitting With

These don't have quick answers. Sit with them. Let them ambush you later.

• When you're trying to manage someone else's behavior, what are you actually afraid will happen if they don't change? Can you name the specific fear — rejection, failure, abandonment, bad outcomes, being alone?

• Where did you learn that you needed to manage things to be safe? Was your childhood stable, or did you grow up in an environment where being in control was the only way to survive?

• Do you know the difference between helping and controlling? When you "help" someone, are you at peace with their choice — or are you anxious until they comply?

• Has your controlling behavior actually produced the results you wanted? Think of a specific person. What happened when you tried to manage them? Did they change, or did they pull away?

• Could your people-pleasing be a form of control? When you work to make everyone happy, are you serving them — or trying to manage their opinion of you so you don't have to feel rejected?

• What would it look like to influence instead of control? In one specific situation, what would change if you set clear expectations and consequences — and then let the other person choose?

• If you redirected all the energy you spend trying to control other people toward your own growth, your own emotional health, your own boundaries — what would be different?

• What old wounds get triggered when you feel out of control? Are there experiences from your past that make uncertainty feel unbearable — times when you really weren't safe and needed someone to protect you?

Growth Practices

Pick one. Try it this week. Notice what happens — both in you and in the people around you.

Week 1: Notice. This week, every time you feel the impulse to control someone — whether through direct pressure, people-pleasing, nagging, or anxious hovering — pause. Don't change anything. Just notice. Ask yourself: "What am I afraid of right now?" Keep a running list. By the end of the week, you'll start to see the pattern — the same fears driving different controlling behaviors in different relationships.

Week 2: Stay on your own property. Pick one relationship where you've been controlling. This week, every time you feel the urge to manage the other person, deliberately redirect to yourself. Instead of "How do I get them to change?" ask "What can I do here that's within my power?" If your teenager won't do homework, set the expectation and consequence — then go read your book. If your spouse makes a choice you don't like, say what you need to say — then let it be. Notice how hard it is. Notice what you feel when you stop reaching across the boundary.

Week 3: Let someone be disappointed. Choose one situation where you'd normally people-please, fix, manage, or smooth over. Don't. Let the person have their reaction — disappointment, frustration, disapproval — without rushing to make it better. You don't need to be cold or unkind. Just don't absorb their feelings as your emergency. Notice what happens inside you when you don't try to control their emotional state. Notice that you survive it.

Week 4: Influence, don't control. Pick a situation where you've been trying to force an outcome. Rewrite the script. Set clear expectations and consequences: "Here's what I need. Here's what I'll do based on your choice. It's up to you." Then release the outcome. The goal isn't to get the result you want — it's to act from a place of self-control rather than other-control. Pay attention to how this changes the dynamic.

Week 5: Address the fear directly. Identify the deepest fear that drives your controlling behavior — abandonment, rejection, failure, chaos. Instead of trying to eliminate the fear by controlling people, do one thing this week to address it head-on. Talk to a trusted friend about it. Write about where it comes from. Take one step toward building security that doesn't depend on another person changing. When you attend to the wound underneath, the controlling behavior often softens on its own.

Scenario Cards

Scenario 1: The Homework Battle Your 14-year-old hasn't started their science project that's due tomorrow. You've reminded them three times this week. They're on their phone. Your gut says to take the phone, sit them down, and stand over them until it's done. You've done this before — and it always ends in a fight, with you more upset than they are.

What would you do? What's the fear underneath your impulse? What would "influence instead of control" look like here?

Scenario 2: The People-Pleasing Trap A friend asks you to help them move this weekend. You already have plans — plans you've been looking forward to. You feel the familiar pull to say yes, cancel your plans, and show up with a smile. If you say no, they might be annoyed. They might think you're selfish. The thought of their disappointment makes your chest tight.

What would you do? What are you really afraid of? What would happen if you said no and let them have their reaction?

Scenario 3: The Codependent Spouse Your partner has been drinking more heavily over the past year. You've hidden bottles, made excuses to their boss, canceled plans to keep them home, and given three ultimatums you didn't follow through on. Nothing has changed. Tonight they come home clearly intoxicated. You feel the old urge to yell, plead, and try to make them see what they're doing.

What can you actually control here? What can't you? What would it look like to stop trying to control them and start taking care of yourself?

Journaling & Reflection

Looking Back

• When did you first become aware of your controlling tendencies? Was there a specific moment someone pointed it out, or did you gradually recognize it? How did you respond?

• What did your childhood environment teach you about control? Was your home stable, or did you learn that you had to manage things to survive? How might those early experiences show up in your control patterns today?

• Where has controlling behavior cost you something — a relationship, trust, peace, your own sense of self? What has your pattern of control taken from you?

Looking Inward

• Where do you currently try to control other people? Be specific — your spouse, children, coworkers, friends. How does your control show up — direct pressure, manipulation, people-pleasing, anxiety, nagging?

• What are you afraid of when you're controlling? Underneath the impulse, what fear is driving it? Can you name it specifically?

• How do you respond when your control doesn't work? When the person doesn't change, when the situation doesn't resolve — what happens inside you? What do you do next?

Looking Forward

• What would your life look like if you stopped trying to control people? Not passive or indifferent — but genuinely at peace with what you can and cannot control. What would change?

• What would it mean to focus your energy on self-control instead of other-control? What areas of your own life need your attention — your reactions, your boundaries, your own growth?

• If you wrote a letter to someone you've tried to control — not to send, just for yourself — what would you want to say? What would you acknowledge about what your control cost them?