Perhaps control has less to do with your actions and more to do with other people's attitudes about you.

The idea of being "in control" of your own life seems so impossible to me that it is almost silly. There are so many factors in your life that you just can't consistently affect.

You can be in control of certain aspects of your life... but only when other people agree to give you that control.

That relinquishment of control can be a positive social arrangement. For example, when I teach class or run a game, people do what I say not because I have "control" but because they have agreed to put me in charge.

That same dynamic can also be damaging.

I think that it is important to realize that every time you are "in control" of a situation, it is because someone else has given up control... and if they did not give it up willingly or consciously, then it is quite possible that you are abusing whatever power you hold over them.

In any event, it's almost a Catch-22. Control is like luck, desire or dates: Conscious attempts to secure these things have a tendency to make them slip even farther away from you.