In a Chaotic World, Your Greatest Power Is Self-Control
These techniques can help your inner strength overcome external circumstances.
Posted July 31, 2025 | Reviewed by Margaret Foley
We white-knuckle the steering wheel when we’re driving in a rainstorm. The wind blows viciously, and visibility drops. Our hands clench tighter, even though we know we can’t control the rain, the road, or the cars around us. Still, we grip because doing something feels better than doing nothing.
Our need for control comes from an inner voice seeking safety, security, happiness , and prosperity in a world that offers no promises. Sure, we might get a money-back guarantee on a car warranty, but when it comes to the things that truly matter, guarantees are an illusion, making control one of its disguises: appearing as a helpful guide, but often serving as a fragile comfort that keeps us clinging when we most need to let go.
Still, control is persistent and stubborn, because life—with all its chaos and uncertainty—doesn’t let up. As a result, we reach for control and the ability to steer our lives through experiences like illness, infertility , death, heartbreak, financial collapse, mental health crises, and addiction . Parenting a struggling child, caring for an aging parent, losing a job, or living through trauma can all leave us feeling like we’re stranded on an island of isolation. In these moments, the instinct to tighten our grip is more like a survival mechanism.
Let’s say someone goes through an unexpected breakup. Their heartache stretches across many chapters—grieving a shared past filled with memories, mourning the companionship of today, and releasing a future that no longer exists. The sadness feels impossible to rein in. So what do they do? Organize their closet. Take down pictures on social media of a smiling couple who now feel like someone else’s life. “I can’t change what happened,” they think, “but I can control what stays and what goes.” In this way, control becomes a form of compensation—a small, tangible way to reclaim agency when another feels unmanageable.
It makes sense, psychologically, that we reach for control when life feels unsteady. Decades ago, a classic study by Langer and Rodin showed how vital even small choices can be (Langer & Rodin, 1976). Nursing home residents who were allowed to decide where to place their plants or what meals to eat lived longer and reported greater well-being than those who didn’t. Around the same time, Seligman’s work on learned helplessness revealed how a perceived lack of control can lead to despair and depression (Seligman, 1975). These findings echo the idea of locus of control —whether we believe we can influence our lives or see ourselves at the mercy of external forces (Rotter, 1966). When life spirals, reclaiming a sliver of internal control can be grounding. Agency, even in small doses, is life-affirming.
Control helps us cope. But it can also become compulsive, unhealthy, or habitual. In times of crisis, we may cling to routines, rules, or rituals, not necessarily because they help, but because they create the feeling that we’re steering the ship.
The former empowers. The latter imprisons.
The goal isn’t to eliminate control altogether—after all, control has healthy dimensions and isn’t the enemy. Instead, it needs to be observed, understood, and tempered so it doesn’t become rigid or compensatory. Control: friend or foe? Like most psychological defenses, control is both—protective in moderation, but potentially harmful when it crowds out flexibility, connection, or trust in the unknown.
Here are some techniques to monitor our relationship with control:
As Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning , “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances” (Frankl, 2006). Control, then, isn’t about dictating what happens next. Your external world can come crumbling down in the direst of circumstances, but you can still have a sense of internal freedom in terms of your stance, mindset, and the next steps you take.
The next time you’re driving in a storm and feel yourself clutching the wheel tightly, yelling at drivers who can’t hear you, pause and consider if the better choice is to pull over, breathe, and wait for the storm to pass. And feel empowered by knowing that choosing when and how to act is one of the greatest freedoms we hold, even amid chaos.
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning . Beacon Press.
Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34 (2), 191–198.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80 (1), 1–28.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death . W. H. Freeman.
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Cynthia Vejar, Ph.D., is program director and associate professor of clinical mental health counseling at Lebanon Valley College.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.