Control and letting go — the difference between wants and needs

Much of the stress and anxiety of daily life originates in the attempt to control outcomes — to guarantee that a specific action produces a specific result. The therapeutic shift is towards investing fully in the action while releasing attachment to what follows.

The stress of control

We make an action and attach to it a required outcome. When it does not come, we suffer. And sometimes, when it does, we suffer differently — because we got exactly what we wanted and discovered it was not what we needed at all.

Philippe Jacquet includes himself in this observation. He has made many actions in pursuit of what he wanted, obtained it, and found the result was a disaster. This raises a question that is harder than it appears: do we actually know what we need?

Wants and needs

Rarely. People are generally far more fluent in what they want than in what they need. Wants are vivid, immediate, and specific. Needs are quieter and often only visible in retrospect — when we look back and understand why not getting what we wanted turned out to be fortunate.

The principle

Invest in the action, release the outcome. Make the action as fully and honestly as you can. Then let go of what it must produce. Make the next action. Let go again.

This is not passivity. It is a particular kind of discipline — tolerating uncertainty, bearing the discomfort of not knowing whether what you are doing will lead where you hope. When the grip on outcomes loosens, something more accurate begins to emerge. Not always what was wanted. Often something closer to what was needed.

The cost of holding on

When control of outcomes is non-negotiable, resentment builds, anxiety increases, mood falls. And underneath, often unexamined, is the possibility that the outcome that did not arrive was simply not right.

“People come in exhausted from trying to control what happens next. They made the action — they did everything right — and the result wasn’t what they needed. But they rarely stop to ask: did I actually know what I needed? Or did I just know what I wanted? Those are very different questions.” — Philippe Jacquet

Book a consultation with Philippe Jacquet — psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, London.