Control freak?

You are familiar with these moments, with yourself or with others: things have to go your way. You have something in your mind, and now things have to go as you planned. And you rather do it yourself than leaving it to other people. A few examples: keeping your house neat and tidy, table manners, organizing an event, the results of a meeting, locking the house when you leave, a spot on a new dress, etc.

You do not want to leave things to others, because then there is no guarantee that the results will be to your liking. And it also means that chances are that there are unforeseen events that come from this, which you are likely to judge as unwanted. Not only because of time issues or outcome. When your kids make unpleasant noises while they eat, you are painfully becoming aware of your own feelings here. When your wife locks the house and forgets to close a window, you believe that your chances of being robbed now increase. When the agenda is not followed during a meeting, it will be a mess and you will get nowhere. Etc. Thus your personality makes the "technical aspects" the most important issue here, and you try to avoid unpleasant feelings.

"I will do it myself", you are likely to state, and before you know it you start to believe that this is normal, and even wanted behaviour. You even accept that this costs you a lot of time and effort. However, this may be the only way for you to learn: first get stuck in a situation before you are willing to admit that this is another personality tool with which he wants to create a world of his own, in which there is make-believe perfection and make-believe safety.

Now whenever you find yourself repeating these patterns again, then use it to become more aware of the issues that your personality brings into this situation, and make a conscious choice to no longer strengthen these. Or call on your inner Self by admitting that you see yourself doing it again, and ask your inner Self for inspiration. And if you feel like calling a control freak to order, then ask yourself why it is so unpleasant for you when someone so obviously takes things away from you because he believes that he can do them better.