I recorded this episode from my back porch.

Which, if you’ve been around for a while, you know is a big deal. Because a few years ago I would never have recorded something outside — cars driving by, a toddler potentially screaming in the background, zero control over the sound. That would have been a hard no.

But our nomadic years cured me of that particular brand of perfectionism. When you’re recording from Airbnbs across the world with three kids underfoot, you very quickly learn: hear me like this or don’t hear me at all.

What’s funny is that the topic of this episode is control. And I’m sitting here on a porch I finally furnished, in a home we finally settled into, talking about the pattern that cost me the most — and still does.

What Control Actually Is (It’s Not What You Think)

When most of us hear the word “controlling,” we think of someone difficult. Rigid. Hard to be around.

But when I think of controlling, I think of me. Specifically, the version of me who’s spiraling — gripping onto every variable I can manage because something feels uncertain and my nervous system has decided that if I just stay on top of everything, nothing bad will happen.

That’s what control actually is.

It’s not a personality flaw. It’s a belief your nervous system learned a long time ago.

The belief sounds something like: if I do everything perfectly, I will be successful. If I manage every detail, my family will be okay. If I hold it all together, nothing will fall apart. Whatever version of that belief lives in you — your nervous system has been running it on a loop, probably for most of your life.

And it made sense once. It kept you safe once. The problem is it doesn’t know when to stop.

Where the Need to Control Comes From

For a lot of high-achieving women, the control pattern started in childhood.

Maybe you grew up in a house where things were unpredictable — where you never knew what version of a parent or caregiver you were going to get. So you learned to read the room. You learned to control whatever you could, because controlling your small corner of things was the only thing that made you feel safe.

Or maybe it was quieter than that. Maybe you just became the responsible one. The capable one. The one who didn’t need anything and figured everything out.

I grew up as the oldest. My mom and I were on our own for a stretch before she remarried. And when my youngest brother was born premature when I was nine, my mom was in the hospital with him for a long time. I don’t hold any of that against her — I genuinely cannot imagine what she was carrying. But what I remember, even if I couldn’t have named it then, was: okay, I have to figure this out myself now.

I became an adult fast. And the part of me that got really good at figuring things out, at managing and monitoring and staying on top of everything? She was brilliant. She got me through a lot.

The problem is that nervous system never got the memo that things are different now.

So it keeps running. In your business. In your marriage. In your body at 2am when you can’t sleep and your brain is scanning for what might go wrong next.

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“Is this actually an emergency, or does it just feel like one?”

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How the Control Pattern Shows Up in Your Business and Life

This is where it gets specific. And I want to be honest with you about the ones I recognize in myself.

Pivoting strategies before they have a chance to work. You can’t tolerate not knowing if something is working. So when it doesn’t produce results immediately, you move. You change the offer, redo the strategy, scrap the plan. And then you do it again. And again. Until you genuinely can’t remember what your original idea even was.

Rewriting everything a million times. Emails. Sales pages. Captions. I have to literally walk away from things because I could keep fixing them forever. My perfectionism was in full effect building my first post back on social — I took way too long on something that didn’t need to be perfect.

Redoing your team’s work. Or not having a team because you can’t hand anything off. If you’re the person who goes back over everything and fixes every last detail, or the person who just does it all herself because it’s easier than watching someone else do it wrong — that’s the pattern.

Not being able to take a real day off. The minute you stop, your brain convinces you things are falling apart. So you do one more thing. And one more thing. “Enough” was actually my word of the year last year — I got it tattooed on my hand. Not just as a reminder that I am enough, but that I’ve done enough. Period.

Managing everything at home too. The calendar, the kids’ schedules, the mental load of the household. Planning the vacation with so much detail that by the time you get there, you’re too exhausted to actually be present for any of it. I know that one personally.

What High-Functioning Burnout Actually Costs You

Here’s the thing we underestimate: control is expensive.

Not in the obvious ways. You might look completely fine from the outside. Color-coded calendar, thriving business, everybody taken care of. But your nervous system is running a constant threat-scan with no off switch. And without turning it off — even briefly — it will eventually run out of battery.

Think about a laptop you never shut down or plug in. At some point it just can’t run anymore.

That’s what high-functioning burnout actually is. It’s not always crying on the bathroom floor. It’s the exhaustion that lives underneath the functioning. The resentment that builds when you do everything. The productivity that starts to slip because you’re spending so much energy managing things that don’t actually need to be managed.

And it costs you in your relationships too. The controlling tendencies that show up with a spouse or kids or team members. The parts of yourself you don’t love. The moments you miss because you’re too far ahead in your head, anticipating what might go wrong.

The One Question That Interrupts the Pattern

I’m not going to give you a six-step plan. The last thing a woman who’s already overmanaging everything needs is more to manage.

Just one question.

Is this actually an emergency, or does it just feel like one?

Your subconscious doesn’t know the difference. The minute a threat is perceived — a dip in revenue, a launch moving slower than expected, a kid having a hard week — your body sounds the alarm and starts reacting. Not because it’s broken. Because that’s what it was trained to do.

But when you pause and actually ask the question, something shifts. You create just enough space to check: is this true? Or am I in pattern?

Nine times out of ten, when I ask my clients who are panicking about a revenue dip to look at their full quarter, they’re way ahead of their goal. The one slow week made them question everything. It wasn’t an emergency. It just felt like one.

Same with social media performance. A launch that’s moving slowly. A kid who’s struggling. My own son wanting to change schools — my whole body had turned that into a crisis until I stopped and asked: is this actually an emergency? It wasn’t. It was hard and uncertain. But it wasn’t an emergency.

How to Start Training Your Nervous System Toward Safety

Every time you hand something off and it works out, you’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to let go.

Every time you take an afternoon off and your business is still there when you come back, you’re teaching yourself what’s true.

Every time you don’t pivot — and the thing you were already doing actually holds — you’re building the evidence that you don’t have to keep moving to stay safe.

This is slow work. It’s not a mindset shift you make once. It’s a question you ask again and again, in the moment, when the spiral wants to start.

What are you controlling right now that you don’t actually need to control?

The Thing I’m Still Working On

I want to share something I read on this episode that I’ve never shared publicly before.

I have vitiligo — an autoimmune condition where the pigmentation in my skin disappears in patches. I’ve had it since I was 12. It started after one of the most traumatic events of my life, and it’s been spreading again recently in ways I wasn’t prepared for.

I’m in a writing group, and a few weeks ago I wrote something about it. Stream of consciousness. No editing. This is what came out:

It is happening again. The relentless spread of my vitiligo that feels like my slow disappearance.

Last week when I looked in the mirror and noticed a new spot on my face, it felt like I was looking at a stranger. Someone I one day might not recognize at all.

I can’t stand them. These white spots covering my body. Stealing moments from my life when I can’t see past my greatest fears.

And sometimes I’m bold and brave and confident in spite of my spots. I wear them proudly. I claim my right to be seen.

And some days I’m my 12-year-old self, scared and afraid when the first white spot arrived after the most traumatic event of my life. I kneel down to her height and I whisper: you are more than enough. And sometimes she believes me.

I share that because I never want you to feel like you’re the only one struggling with something you can’t fix or control. This is mine. And I wholeheartedly believe everything happens for us. So rather than controlling it, I will keep writing about it until I find a deeper level of acceptance.

Control shows up everywhere. In our businesses, our homes, our relationships. And sometimes it shows up in the way we relate to our own bodies.

The invitation isn’t to fix it all at once. It’s to look at what parts of your control pattern are a wounded, scared version of you trying to stay safe — and what parts are actually serving you. Then slowly, imperfectly, start to let go of the ones that are costing you the most.

🎧 This is Episode 185 of the Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.he Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

xx, Ash

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