Manager or micromanager of your own life

You don't have to connect with everything. What hurts you is dropping down into the micromanagement, becoming a micromanager and then losing the management. Losing the management of your own life, your happiness, your wellbeing.

I see it all the time. People who dive into other people's problems with absolute dedication. The drama of a colleague. A friend's crisis. The family conflict that isn't theirs to solve. They get into the detail of every situation that doesn't belong to them and when they look up, their own life is unattended.

I don't work in crisis mode anymore

I had a client who came three times a month in crisis mode. Three emergency sessions. And every time the story was the same: he had felt terrible, everything hurt, he felt like he was dying. Every time. And every time, when we reviewed what had happened that week, the same cast appeared: croissants, coffee, wine and aged cheese.

It's not that these foods are poison. It's that when your system is already compromised, they're the trigger. Alcohol, aged cheese and coffee raise histamine. Histamine activates cortisol. Cortisol fires up inflammation. And suddenly you feel like you're dying. But you're not dying. You're activating a system that was already at its limit.

I told him: “I don't work in crisis mode anymore. If you want to keep coming in emergency mode, find someone else. I work in management. In prevention. In helping you understand why your body responds the way it does so you stop provoking it.”

Management starts from above

A good manager isn't putting out fires all day. They're up above, seeing the whole system, making decisions that prevent the fires. The same applies to your life. If you're constantly in crisis mode —reacting to what happens, resolving emergencies you provoked yourself— you're not managing. You're surviving.

Death is ruthless, because it puts things right in front of you. It shows you what matters. And when someone close to you dies or you yourself have a serious scare, suddenly you see with brutal clarity what you were doing with your time and your energy. Micromanaging what doesn't matter. While what matters was slipping away.

Level up

Stop getting into the mud of every drama. Stop micromanaging other people's problems. Stop provoking your own crises with habits you know are destroying you. Rise. Manage from above. Observe the whole system. Make decisions that protect your energy, your health, your peace.

The question is not whether you're capable of managing. The question is at what level you're managing. If you're in the micro-detail of other people's lives, you've already lost the management of your own.