LOCUS OF CONTROL: The Key to Taking Control of Your Life

As you go through life and come across its attendant highs and lows, you can either associate your experiences; the successes and/or failures, to factors you have control over or to forces outside your control. Whichever disposition you choose has a direct influence on your long-term success or failure.

Most people go about looking for that secret key to help them take control of their lives, but only few know that it lies inside their own mindset. Strange as it might sound, many of us believe that the bad experiences we have are created by other people, luck or fate.

The key to taking control is taking responsibility. It lies in your mindset. It’s all about your Locus of Control.

LOCUS OF CONTROL

Locus of Control refers to a person’s perception about the underlying causes of events in his/her life. It borders on the extent to which a person feels he has control over the events that influence his life.

The Locus of Control orientation is a belief about whether the outcomes we get are contingent on what we do (internal locus of control) or on events outside our personal control (external locus of control) (Zimbardo, 1985, P. 275)

If you believe that you have control over what happens to you, then you have an internal locus of control. If you believe that you have no control over what happens to you, that external factors are to blame, then you have an external locus of control.

Your locus of control not only influences how you react to events in your life, but also your motivation to take action. If you believe that you are master of your fate, you are more likely to take action.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL

We should note first that locus of control is a one-dimensional continuum. Nobody has a 100% external or internal locus of control, instead, what we have is a continuum between the two extremes.

Internal Locus of Control: People with dominant internal locus of control are more likely to take responsibility for their actions. They tend to be less influenced by the opinions of other people. They have a strong sense of self-efficacy and feel confident in the face of challenges. These people often achieve greater success in life.

Holding yourself responsible may seem hard at first but it will bring you unparalleled freedom in the long-run. This is the key to taking control of your life.

External Locus of Control: People with dominant external locus of control are people who are more likely to blame outside forces for their circumstances and often attach luck and chance to any success. They usually don’t believe that they can change their situation through their own efforts, so they frequently feel hopeless and powerless in the face of difficulty. They are more prone to experiencing learned hopelessness.

Making excuses and blaming other people and fate for what goes on in your life is definitely the easy way out. What did you hear about easy ways?

By placing your locus of control on external factors, you are neglecting and giving away your power. When you neglect this power long enough, you eventually start believing you don’t have any.

HOW DOES YOUR LOCUS OF CONTROL AFFECT YOUR LIFE?

Your locus of control has profound effect on your life, from how you handle your responsibilities, cope with stress to your motivation to take charge of your life.

In general, people with internal locus of control tend to be better off. However, it is paramount to note that internal locus of control does not always mean “good” and external locus of control does not always mean “bad”. In some contexts, having an external locus of control is a good thing—usually when a situation poses a threat to self-esteem or is genuinely out of a person’s control.

Having an internal locus of control can greatly boast your productivity, as well as your happiness. It means that you believe your actions have an impact; that you count for something. So if your locus of control tends towards the external, it might be helpful for you to start actively trying to change your perspective about events, especially events in your life.

Once you realize that you are the master of your own fate, you become powerful, because you become aware that you can change your life by your thoughts, actions and the things you focus on. Rather than put yourself in a position of a passive bystander who is caught up in fate, you start thinking of yourself as an active/primary participant in your life. You start thinking about things you can do to positively impact your life. Then you start making conscious decisions towards what you want bearing in mind that you are in control of your life.