The Control Trap: Why Trying Harder Is Making You Feel More OverwhelmedThe Control Trap: Why Trying Harder Is Making You Feel More Overwhelmed
RAW CHATTER!
Vicky Midwood talks about how tightening control when life feels chaotic often fuels overwhelm, anxiety and paralysis. She explains what is genuinely in your control and suggests pausing, reassessing and softening rigid rules to support your nervous system and wellbeing.
22:12•31 Mar 2026
The Control Trap: Why More Discipline Is Leaving You Exhausted
Episode Overview
- Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate how long tasks take, which feeds constant overwhelm.
- Tightening control through stricter rules and routines often increases anxiety, procrastination and paralysis instead of reducing them.
- Language and inner chatter strongly shape how you feel and function, with critical self-talk turning pressure up rather than helping.
- The only things actually in your control are your thoughts, feelings and actions; other people and external events are not.
- Creating space to pause, review life areas and listen to the body can reduce the urge to over-control and support healthier choices.
“The only things that we can actually control are how we feel, how we think, and the behavioural action steps that we take or do not take.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober, running a business, raising a family, or just keeping life together when everything feels like too much? RAW CHATTER! host Vicky Midwood takes on the "control trap" – that habit of tightening the rules when chaos hits – and shows why it so often backfires.
Speaking directly to high achievers, founders, professionals and anyone with a busy brain, she explains how most people "overestimate what we can get done in a day" and underestimate how long things actually take. That mismatch, plus towering expectations, leaves to-do lists overflowing and nervous systems frazzled. Vicky breaks down how trying to be "even stricter and more clear and more specific on the rules" might look organised on the outside, but often hides inner panic, anxiety and eventually paralysis.
She encourages listeners to step back and review key areas of life: relationships, finances, work, health and self-talk, asking honestly, "What is actually in my control here?" Her core message is blunt but reassuring: "The only things that we can actually control are how we feel, how we think, and the behavioural action steps that we take or do not take." Rather than piling on more rules, she invites people to pause, create space, listen to their bodies, and loosen the grip on outcomes.
She brings in real-life examples from clients with ADHD and autism, and from her own experience of grief, burnout and even a heart attack, to show how over-control can become a way of avoiding emotional pain rather than dealing with it. You’ll hear her stress the role of language and inner chatter – those critical, rebellious and nurturing "voices" in the mind – and how harsher self-talk ramps up pressure instead of helping performance.
If control has become your go-to coping strategy – with food, routines, work or recovery – this conversation might nudge you to ask: what would happen if you tried the opposite and simply gave yourself some breathing room?
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