Overcoming a control freak nature
Overcoming a control freak nature and choosing your battles
Some have a high inner urge to fix things. It is such fixers, many times with genuine motives, that usually generate the biggest conflicts – in spite of their genuine motives. When conflicts arise the exchange of words are generally unpleasant and sometimes cursing. This is most pronounced among those they are in most contact with: family members, relatives, friends, neighbors, workmates, and so on.
Thus if you're a fixer, the discipline of engaging the brain before operating the mouth is critical. Being a fixer is not a personality defect or flaw. This world desperately needs fixers – good fixers of things and of people. It's when it's applied wrongly or taken to extremes that it becomes dysfunctional.
People with the fixing mentality are usually perfectionists. A perfectionist personality can focus its energies on various things and in different degrees from person to person. Some can be towards moral principles, others religion, staying healthy, fitness and exercise, sports, career interests, family, entertainment, the environment, nature, animals, charity causes, and so on. In a most non-people matters a perfectionist personality is an asset or valuable to have.
It is a when perfectionist personality is applied to dealing with people that it becomes a liability or a problem. Being a perfectionist in an imperfect fallen world is a miserable occupation for the perfectionist and the people around him/her.
When dealing with people the tendency to desire matters to be in perfect ways becomes a more subjective issue rather than an objective reality. It is a subjective issue partly because the perfectionist has imperfections to live with himself. He therefore ought not to expect or insist on others meeting up to his unrealistic standards. This insisting on others to meet up to one's unrealistic standards is what is normally called a control freak nature.
Here is a good definition of a control freak: “a person whose behavior indicates a powerful need to control people or circumstances in everyday matters” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). You can see this is not a healthy area to have a perfectionist personality. It is a formula for constant conflicts particularly with those that will resist being put in a box of the control freak. Few people want to be caged up into a person defined by someone else.
Our individualities are what make us unique from each other. These individualities are not defects or flaws per se. They are in two parts: good individualities and unhealthy individualities. My book Breaking Spiritual Strongholds and Healing the Wounded Spirit: Dealing with Root Causes , has more detailed info in this topic.
The key therefore for a control freak or perfectionist personality towards people is to know when he/she is overstepping boundaries. Even over unhealthy individualities it is not necessarily the control freak's duty to straighten the other person. A control freak has an instinctive drive to manipulate others. He/she feels duty bound over others as a self-appointed police and law enforcement officer.
No one enjoys being around someone seeking to police or supervise them – especially if he only appointed himself to lord it over them. Control freaks are difficult to get along with most of the time because of their dictatorial and bossy attitude. A control freak will choose conflict over harmony over even the least important matters.
Overcoming a control freak nature is so important when dealing with those in most contact with - family members, relatives, friends, neighbors, workmates, and so on. It is a needles liability or problem to have when it can be avoided. If you have this nature here are steps to overcoming it: