The Paradox of Control: Discovering Your True Power
How to Shift from Feeling Powerless to Embracing Your True Agency
Have you ever felt like life is happening to you rather than with you? I have. And I know I'm not alone.
Today, we begin a journey together exploring something I'm deeply passionate about: your magnificent capacity to shape your life, even when the world feels chaotic or out of your control.
In my years of coaching (and my own life experience), I've witnessed something both heartbreaking and hopeful: we often feel crushed by life's demands while simultaneously underestimating our power to transform our experience of it. It's as if we're driving with one foot pressed hard on the gas pedal of responsibility while the other hovers anxiously over the brake of perceived powerlessness.
The Control Paradox
Here's what I find both fascinating and liberating: control is paradoxical. When we feel most powerless, we desperately grasp for control, yet in that very moment, we're often blind to the profound power we already hold. We feel victimized by circumstances, other people's actions, or systems beyond our reach, while overlooking the thousands of beautiful, transformative choices available to us each day.
This paradox creates more than confusion – it creates pain. I remember sitting across from Sarah, a brilliant woman who had "made it" by every external measure. With tears in her eyes, she told me, "I'm responsible for everything, yet feel in control of nothing." Does that resonate with you? I know it did with me.
But here's where hope lives: between helpless victim and omnipotent controller lies a rich, vibrant territory of possibility. This is your true domain – the space where conscious choice creates not just meaningful change, but a life that feels like your own.
The Hidden Landscape of Choice + Control
Every day contains countless moments of choice that we often navigate on autopilot:
How you respond to that email that makes your heart race
Whether you take three deep breaths before entering a difficult conversation
If you choose curiosity or judgment when faced with difference or feeling of criticism
When you decide to speak up or remain silent
How you talk to yourself when things don't go as planned
These may seem inconsequential, but they're not. They're the building blocks of your life experience. As Annie Dillard wisely noted, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
From Reaction to Intention
The shift from feeling controlled by life to authoring your experience begins with a simple but profound realization: while you can't control everything that happens to you, you always have agency in how you respond.
This isn't about toxic positivity or denying reality. It's about reclaiming your power within the real constraints of your life. It's recognizing that between stimulus and response lies a space – sometimes just a breath – where you can choose.
Practices for Reclaiming Your Power of Choice
Here are some practical ways to strengthen your "choice muscles" and shift from a mindset of helplessness to one of agency:
1. Cultivate the Pause
Before automatically reacting, create a small gap – even just a breath – to interrupt the automatic response. This tiny space contains enormous power.
Try this: Set three random alarms on your phone today. When each goes off, take three conscious breaths before continuing what you were doing. Notice how this small pause feels.
2. Change Your Language
Notice when you use phrases like "I have to," "I can't," or "I should." These often mask choices as obligations.
Try this: For one day, replace "I have to" with "I choose to" and notice how it feels. "I have to prepare for this meeting" becomes "I choose to prepare for this meeting." The shift might surprise you.
3. Expand Your Options
When feeling trapped, challenge yourself to identify more possibilities. The binary thinking of "either/or" limits your sense of agency.
Try this: When facing a difficult situation, list at least five possible responses before deciding. Even if you choose one of your original options, the act of expanding possibilities strengthens your sense of choice.
4. Practice Micro-Decisions
Build your decision-making confidence through small, low-stakes choices.
Try this: Make one small, deliberate change to your routine tomorrow. Take a different route to work, rearrange your morning sequence, or try a new food. Notice how it feels to consciously choose different.
5. Mind Your Sphere of Influence
One of the most powerful ways to reclaim control is to focus your energy where you have genuine influence, rather than dispersing it across everything that concerns you.
Try this: Draw three concentric circles. In the innermost circle, list what you have direct control over (your responses, your actions, your words). In the middle circle, list what you can influence but not control (some relationships, some circumstances). In the outer circle, list your concerns that you can neither control nor directly influence. For the next week, focus 80% of your energy on the inner circle, 15% on the middle, and just 5% on the outer.
The Many Dimensions of Control
As we explore this series together, we'll delve into the many dimensions where you have more power than you might realize:
Your internal narrative – the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what's possible
Your attention – what you focus on and what you filter out
Your physical wellbeing – how you nourish, move, and rest your body
Your boundaries – what you allow into your life and what you keep out
Your environment – the spaces you create and inhabit
Your relationships – how you show up and engage with others
Your growth – where and how you choose to learn and develop
Each of these territories contains untapped potential for exercising choice, even in the midst of circumstances you didn't choose.
Breaking Free from a Disempowered Mindset
I know this truth deeply, personally: when life overwhelms us, it's seductively easy to slip into feeling disempowered, like a victim of circumstances beyond our control. I've been there. Maybe you're there right now.
But I want to share something powerful that changed everything for me – and has transformed the lives of countless clients. This isn't about blaming ourselves for difficult circumstances; it's about discovering our magnificent capacity to respond with intention rather than simply react on autopilot.
I'll never forget Lisa, a client who had weathered a series of heart-wrenching professional and personal setbacks. With a mix of exhaustion and revelation in her voice, she told me: "I've spent years saying 'when things settle down, then I'll focus on what I want.' I suddenly realized things are never going to 'settle down' – and I've been putting my life on hold waiting for perfect conditions that don't exist."
Her breakthrough – her moment of reclaiming her power – came when she recognized that even within her demanding, imperfect reality, she could make intentional choices that honored her deepest values. She couldn't control her company's restructuring or her partner's health challenges, but she could control how she invested her precious energy, where she placed firm, loving boundaries, and perhaps most importantly, how she authored the story of her life.
Six months later, the external circumstances hadn't changed dramatically – but Lisa had. "I feel like I've taken my life back," she said, "not by controlling everything around me, but by remembering I always have a choice in how I show up."
The Journey Ahead
I'm genuinely excited about the journey we're about to take together. In the coming weeks, we'll venture into territories where your capacity for choice and agency runs deeper than you might imagine. Together, we'll discover practical, powerful ways to:
Transform your relationship with uncertainty into one of curiosity and possibility
Author your own authentic story rather than living the one handed to you
Make decisions with courage and confidence, even when the path isn't clear
Set boundaries that honor your truth without apology or explanation
Create sacred spaces for reflection in a world that rewards constant reaction
Align your daily choices with the values that make your heart sing
This journey isn't about achieving perfect control – that's neither possible nor actually desirable. It's about discovering the vast, rich territory of possibility that exists even within life's beautiful unpredictability.
Because here's what I know in my bones to be true: When you recognize and embrace your power to choose – moment by moment, breath by breath – you step out of the passenger seat and claim your rightful place as the author of your life.
Not to control everything that happens (we all know how that works out!), but to participate fully, consciously, and joyfully in your own unfolding.
I invite you – with an open heart and complete faith in your capacity – to join me in this exploration of what becomes possible when we shift from feeling controlled by life to dancing with it as a co-creator.
What's one small, meaningful choice you could make today that would remind you of your magnificent agency? What tiny step would help you reclaim even a corner of your power? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
This is just the beginning of our journey together. Next week, we'll dive into "The Stories We Don't Question: Examining Your Relationship with Control" – and I can't wait to continue this conversation with you
