A method is proposed for controlling a motor vehicle (10) traveling on a roadway (12) in a current lane (14), wherein the roadway (12) has at least one additional lane (16) that is adjacent to the current lane (14) of the motor vehicle (10). The method has the following steps: At least one possible driving maneuver for the motor vehicle (10) is generated and/or received. A cost functional is determined, wherein the cost functional associates a cost factor with the at least one possible driving maneuver. At least one time-variant constraint is determined and/or received. The cost functional is extremized under the at least one time-variant constraint, and the possible driving maneuver is adapted based on the extremized cost functional, so that a target driving maneuver is obtained. In addition, a control unit (30) for a system (26) for controlling a motor vehicle (10) is proposed.