Another important element of happiness: having a sense of CONTROL over your life.

Research shows that a key component of happiness is a sense of control over your life. The more you perceive yourself to be in control, the better you feel.

A sense of control means having a feeling of autonomy, of choosing how you spend your time, of doing your own work in your own way.

This is obviously true about major issues, such as whether you can control when you leave work each night or whether you have any leisure time. Lately, though, I’ve noticed how much better I feel even in insignificant situations when I feel like I have some control.

Generally, if the Big Man makes dinner, I clean the kitchen; despite the obvious moral hazard inherent in this system, it works well. The other night, however, as we finished eating, I looked around and noticed that he’d somehow used every pot and chopping board we owned.

“Don’t worry about the kitchen,” the Big Man volunteered, before I said a word. “I’ll clean it up after my conference call.”

I went ahead and cleaned up the mess myself. By telling me that he’d take over the chore even though it was my responsibility, he put me in control. By offering to do the clean-up himself, he removed my sense of resentment, and he also made me feel like I was choosing to give him a treat.

Also, discomfort is easier to bear when you know that you can end it when you choose.

A few months ago, for our trip to India, I got my first prescription for sleep medication. I used to get very worked up when I had trouble sleeping, but now my bouts of insomnia bother me less. I almost never actually take the Ambien, but just knowing that it’s in the medicine cabinet makes me feel in control of my sleep.

So I’ve been looking for ways to make people, particularly the Big Man, feel that they have more control, especially in situations they find unpleasant. I’m trying to say things like…

“Do as much as you can, and I’ll finish up.”
“We’ll leave as soon as you want to leave.”
“Don’t worry about that, this time I’ll take care of it.”

Child-rearing experts advise giving children a sense of control by allowing them to make choices about the little things in their lives—though with kids, it’s better to limit the choices so they don’t feel overwhelmed.

“Would you like to wear your green shirt or your white shirt?”
“Do you feel like having milk or water with dinner?”
“Pick out a book for me to read to you.”

This blog is a great example of how having a sense of control changes perception of a task. If “someone” had assigned me the job of writing a blog entry six days a week, I would have considered it an enormous burden. But because I control the blog, and I can change my mind whenever I like, keeping up with the writing feels like a satisfying exercise of autonomy, rather than an onerous assignment.

Comments

[Britt]

So true! I used to take the bus to work and only drive the car once a week, to get groceries. Every other week I'd take off on Saturday morning only to discover that yet again my husband hadn't bothered to gas up, and the needle of the fuel gauge was almost on E. Fuming, I would fill the tank, resentful that I had to take time out of my Saturday to get gas when I drew the car only one day a week. It started to really get to me.

Then one day I decided that I was going to fill the tank every week. It was good to keep at least half a tank of gas for emergencies, I thought.

Suddenly, I was no longer angry about getting gas. It's silly, because I was spending almost twice as much time on the chore. Yet I wasn't being forced to do it, I was doing it because I chose to. My resentment was gone. It is so illogical, but it made a big difference in my feelings toward my husband.

[Sharyn]

It immediately struck me that, in your ideas of how to let the Big Man feel more in control, you were choosing to be unselfish, choosing to be considerate. Is the trick here really just choosing to be a very nice, thoughtful person? Oh boy, if more of us saw taking THAT choice as a way to feel more in control, what a better world it would be!

[Sarah]

You know what's funny - I subscribe to your blog and usually am right with you about the strategies and ideas you write about, but today, I actually think exactly the opposite of this post. I think recognizing and accepting that many - if not most - things are out of our control can have a profoundly freeing effect. It gives me a sense of peace to know that things are out of my hands.

[Mark]

Again - a great idea. But, as in the past, I find myself saying, yeah this can work, but if I say something like “Do as much as you can, and I’ll finish up", I end up inherating the task - especially at work. The motto in my office seems to be 'if you do it once, it's your job until someone else is dumb enough to do it once." It's as if there is some expectation to do it after you've done it once - aka being lazy.

I don't mean to be negative here - just relating some thoughts from my real life experience.

[MoreTimeAndMoney]

I do feel better when I believe that I'm in control (even if I'm sitting in a roller coaster @ Six Flags or a late #6 train.) You started the post with a mention about relevant research, would you provide a link, if possible, in the future.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Ah, the old Serenity Prayer -- knowing what you can change (i.e., what's within your control), knowing what you can't change, and the wisdom to know the difference...maybe the fact that so much is out of our control is what makes it reassuring to exercise control when you can.

Yes, there can be a real problem if an act of generosity quickly becomes a new obligation. That's tough. If I had less office experience, I would be might say that if you keep acting generously, the spirit will catch on, and everyone will help each other more. Alas, that probably wouldn't work. However, I do think in a tight relationship, like a marriage, it IS more likely to work. I've noticed that as I've done less score-keeping, nagging, and shirking, the Big Man has been much better about holding up his end. But I think that's because a marriage between two people is so different from the diffuse nature of a collection of colleagues.

I'm old-fashioned and do much of my research in the book world. Not linkable, but useful on this subject, is Michael Argyle's Psychology of Happiness, at 155-56.

[tracey]

It's amazing how such small changes can create such positive results. When I do this with my kids it does indeed change the whole dynamic of things.Glad you shared this. It's very effective.

Found you via Typepad's feature. GREAT blog here!!

[Patsy Terrell]

You've hit the nail on the head. Now that I have a job where I control my own hours I work more than I ever did when they made me sit in the chair 8-5.

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