How to Get Rid of Your Inner Control Freak

During the past four weeks, I’ve become very familiar with this word: Surrender—a word that by its very definition, to give  up or relinquish, goes completely against my grain. Or at least, it used to. 

When building a business, it’s really easy to fall victim to the mindset of “if you want something done right, you better do it yourself.” And your Inner Control Freak (ICF) supports that message… for a while.

And then one day fate dishes out a new reality that looks more like this: You really don’t have as much control as you think you do, so you better be ready for anything. <Tweet This>

Best Laid Plans and All That …

The plan was to have the surgery (the one I had put off, pushed back and rescheduled for three years) and be back in front of my computer within five days. I had the weekend to recover and the ortho doc assured me that many patients were able to work from home within a few days. Sounded good to me. I have the greatest team, who are able to pick up where I leave off on most things, and what’s a few days? It’s a vacation, essentially. Not even a week. So I let go (of control).

Five days after my surgery, I was still popping Percocet every three hours, unable to eat solid food and was only able to speak at a volume that my dog could hear. I was not happy, but I was not worried. Again, I go back to our team. Having planned for this possibility, we never missed a beat on a project. We rocked!

I know, it sounds like that’s the end of the story, right? The happy ending. I mean, we planned the work, delegated, scheduled and monitored progress. We knew what needed to be done and having the RIGHT team in place gave me the peace of mind I needed to give in to my desire to do it all. It’s a good message.

But this… this is where FATE stepped in and really tested my ability to truly give up control. All the planning and teamwork is awesome–and necessary if you are going to grow your business–but are you really giving up control?

Being able to trust in the people and processes you have in place to keep your business running smoothly in your absence is crucial, but you might not have the luxury of “controlling” the way that unfolds.

And here’s how I found that out…the hard way.

Just When You Think You’ve Got it Under Control…

On week three of my recovery, I was back to work full swing. Back to managing processes, assigning work and hopping on calls with the team. Life was good. I was back in control.

And then I fell and broke my right foot.

In retrospect, I realized that during that short fall, I was rushing. I was wondering if I should hop on a client call, even though I knew our content strategist didn’t need me there. I was thinking about whether the reports we were expecting would arrive in time for the meeting tomorrow. My mind wasn’t in the moment – it was on the worries.

I was thinking of everything except the movement of my feet. One foot in front of the other.

So, the message ( I know, I’m finally getting to the message)… is that while it’s important to make sure you have the very best team in place to manage projects when you’re away, there comes a time when you really do have to just let go.

What ways have you found that can help business owners create a company that runs on its own?