The Myth of Control: Why Letting Go Might Save You in 2025

For anyone whose plans have gone to shit.

Apr 26, 2025

I’ve spent most of my life identifying—almost proudly—as a control freak. The planner. The optimizer. The person with backup plans for her backup plans. Control made me feel safe. Grounded. In charge.

Then COVID happened. And suddenly, everything we had all been striving toward—every perfectly color-coded calendar, every five-year plan, every carefully stacked career move—was irrelevant. The world unraveled. And so did I.

I grasped harder.

I took up hobbies. I worked out like a maniac. I perfected things that didn’t need to be perfect. I overworked, and then overworked some more. Because somewhere deep down, I believed that if I just tried harder—if I could just master the chaos—I could get it all back.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

The relationship ended. The house didn’t work out. My mother became a stranger. The world felt like it was on fire.

And yet…I was okay. Actually, I was more than okay. I was fine. I was—happy?

What saved me wasn’t control. It was surrender.

What You Try to Control Will Disappoint You

Right now, the urge to grasp makes sense. The economy is unstable. Fear mongering is rampant. Everything feels fragile again—just like 2020. We’re in a collective freeze, bracing for what’s next.

Studies are even showing that levels of stress and emotional overwhelm are back to pandemic-era highs. And we’re supposed to just keep going?

No wonder we’re clenching so tightly to our plans, our identities, our illusions of stability.

But here’s what I’ve learned, painfully, beautifully, and not by choice: control is a myth. What you try to dominate will inevitably disappoint you. But what you release—what you make peace with—might just surprise you in the most profound, life-altering way.

Reframing the Unplanned

This is for the person who had it all lined up. The job, the move, the timeline, the “next step.”

And then—the rug got pulled out from under you.

I understand. I am that person. The one who checked all the boxes. Who did it “right.” And still landed here, in the mess.

It’s been hard. Brutal, even.

In the spirit of radical transparency, this winter has been absolute hell for me…but this time it hit different.

This time, I tried something new: reframing.

Not in some toxically positive, “everything is a lesson” kind of way. More like… “this is the only way I can survive this without falling apart completely.”

In the middle of what I call Q1 2025 CHAOS, I:

Read When Breath Becomes Air and learned to really ask myself, “Am I truly living?”
Watched Sing Sing and felt the kind of joy that cracks something open.
Devoured Let Them by Mel Robbins and released a lot of what I’ve held.
Wrote more Substack articles in two weeks than I had in a year.

Not because I planned it. Not because I had control. But because I let go.

I’m still letting go. Every day.

Some mornings I wake up thinking, I hate this. I can’t believe this is my life.

And then I remember—I still get to choose.

That reframe alone? That’s been everything.

The Guilt of Saying Any of This

Even writing this feels hard. I know I live a life of immense privilege. And I carry deep guilt that someone like me—who has had access and opportunity—could even say, “This is hard.”

But I’ve closed the business that shaped my identity.

I’ve lost my godfather, the person who helped raise me.

My dog, Lou, almost passed on (we’ve had a miracle comeback), and if you’ve ever loved a dog the way I love mine, you know that kind of heartbreak doesn’t have a scale.

So with those truths, I’ve accepted that pain doesn’t ask how much you make. Grief doesn’t check your résumé before knocking you to the ground. None of us are immune.

The Surrender

What I’m learning now, in real time, is that uncertainty doesn’t cancel out joy. That love still exists on the other side of heartbreak. That meaning can live even in the ruins of a plan.

And maybe—just maybe—this moment of unraveling is actually life creating space for something better.

So if you’re in your own version of this moment, if everything feels like it’s slipping through your fingers—I want you to hear this:

You will be okay.

Not because you white-knuckled your way through.

But because you surrendered. Because you dared to trust that life might still meet you—even here.

And when you land—because you will—I hope you look back and realize: this season of letting go wasn’t the end.

It was the beginning.