Do
you make excuses for your failures? Do you have a million reasons why you
weren’t able to accomplish the tasks you had in mind? Do you blame others when
things go wrong, illustrating an external locus of control? If you do, you will
find yourself immobilized. You’ll be held back because if you don’t believe the
situation you’re in is in your control, you are not going to try to change it.
You have already made your excuses. Because that’s what excuses do: give you a
bullshit reason not to change. Individuals who fall strongly into this category
are most likely extremely frustrated and unhappy with their lives, which
becomes especially evident when things go wrong. How can they not be? Having no
control over your life is a psychological prison. I wouldn’t wish it upon
anyone.
In
this article I’m going to talk about the importance of an internal locus of
control, but I’m also going to break down where self-help books fail in regards
to this topic. There’s a crucial detail that they leave out, mainly because it
would make their idealistic beliefs seem less promising. But at Motivation Hacker, we blow through the fluff and
come up with practical ways to live our lives. I have no interest in sharing ideas with you that make you
feel good today, but hurt you in the long run.
It
is clear then, that an internal locus of control is important. You must assume
responsibility for the circumstances in which you find yourself if you wish to
change them. You have to shift your thinking from the idea that “things happen
to you” to the being-in-control-of-your-life idea that “you have to make things
happen”. If you believe it’s in your power to make things happen, you will put
in a persistent effort to see the changes you desire. And when you see the
changes you desire, you’ll reinforce the idea that you do have the power to
make things happen. Basically:
If
you take responsibility for yourself, you will develop a hunger to accomplish
your dreams.
It’s
empowering. It’s quite possibly the greatest discovery I’ve made. As soon as I
put myself behind the steering wheel of my own life, things began to happen. If
I had weaknesses that were holding me back, I set out to change them. Things
like receiving a rejection letter didn’t mean I was rejected. It meant I had to
call them again, set-up an appointment and appeal the rejection. When my
cellphone provider was going to charge me $500 for roaming fees and every
customer service rep I talked to said there was nothing they could do about it,
I didn’t sit back and make myself a victim. I asked for the manager. I got the
same answer. But I didn’t just simmer in anger and make a cathartic Facebook
status about it. I knew I had to find another way, and I did: I was given the
email of the president of customer service, who waived the charges. Problem
solved.
When
you find yourself in control of your own life, you will find yourself more
satisfied and content on a daily basis. You will never again have to feel that
feeling of “all these unfair things keep happening to me and it’s not fair”
feeling. It’s extremely important to shift your thinking from “this sucks” to
“what can I do about it?”. I don’t think anyone with an external locus of
control, ever, has reached a significant level of success. If there are
exceptions, these would be the individuals who “got lucky”. And are you willing
to bank your entire future on luck? I know I’m not. Knowing the right people
helps, and getting lucky helps. But these things are overrated. Besides, if you
had the power to make things happen, you could weasel your way into knowing the
right people and pave your own “luck”. Because is it really luck if you made it
happen? Here’s the answer:
Luck
is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
We
all come across opportunities to get lucky every day. But if we’re not prepared
to pounce on them, we won’t. In fact, we probably won’t even recognize them if we’re
not prepared. So let me repeat that: if you’re in the driver’s seat of your own
life, you can pave your own luck. The more control you assume, the more control
you will have.
But
wait. As I alluded to earlier, it’s not all that simple. There is a paradox
here. If you’re familiar with any self-help books, you’ve come across the responsibility assumption. This is the belief
that the circumstances in which you find yourself are completely your
responsibility. This belief entails taking 100% responsibility for everything
in your life. If you find yourself in some unfavorable situation, you put
yourself there, either consciously or unconsciously, and it’s your job to get
out of it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books that go into this.
The majority of mainstream self-help books and self-help classics all suggest
the same exact thing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them right. But wasn’t I
regurgitating the same exact advice just now? What gives?
The
problem with this advice is that it can be easily misapplied. This happens when
an individual assumes control over a situation that they don’t actually
control. If you do this, you will find yourself running into a wall repeatedly.
Imagine trying to find the solution to a problem, but failing no matter what
you do. You’re doing everything you know, working your ass off, and the results
are nowhere to be seen. Months pass, years pass, and still no results. In fact,
things start to get worse. Whose fault is all this? Yours. Because everything
is your responsibility, remember?
The
reality is that you don’t have control over everything that happens to
you. Of course you don’t. And we can fall into a lot of trouble when we assign
blame to ourselves regarding events that were actually outside of our control.
If you own a business and the industry you’re in crashes, the crash wasn’t your
fault. But how you respond to it is. However, how can you possibly know the
best response? Maybe the wisest thing to do would be to immediately leave the
industry and start a business elsewhere. Maybe it’s to stay in the industry
until it recovers. Maybe you leave the industry, start a business elsewhere,
and that business tanks. Maybe you quit, go back to college, and find a more
stable job. If you’re too hard on yourself when shit hits the fan, you’re going
to suffer through a lot of mental anguish, which cues the paradox of
responsibility:
How
do I take responsibility for everything in my life, if not everything in my
life is in my control?
The
solution to the paradox, is this: what is in your control is figuring
out which aspects of your life are in your control, and which aren’t. Let me
repeat that. Not everything is in your control, but you have to take
responsibility for knowing when this is the case. When a situation is in you
control, you take charge. If a situation is completely out of your control, you
approach it accordingly. Referring to the example above, if you know the
industry you’re working in is dying, don’t waste your energy trying to keep
your business afloat. It’s time to move on to another industry. In this case,
it isn’t your responsibility to keep working on your business and making it
better. Instead, your responsibility is to realize that the market has changed,
and the time has come for you to adapt and move on. Both of these decisions
involve taking responsibility (which is obviously a good thing). However, one
decision has realistic understanding of where it has control, while the other
is beating a dead horse by claiming responsibility under the wrong
circumstances.
An
unrealistic viewpoint of control is will lead to that running-into-a-wall
situation mentioned earlier. Let’s go through some more examples. What if you
ask a girl out and she turns you down? If it was your fault, it will leave you
ruminating about how your personality isn’t attractive enough, you’re not
good-looking enough, or that you’re not intelligent enough. So it’s not her
saying yes that’s in your control, but how you handle it and move on. If you
mistakenly believe her response is within your control, you’re going to keep
trying when there is going to be nothing to gain. Again, you’ll be beating a
dead horse. So be very careful in deciding whether something is truly your
responsibility or not. If your persistent effort is fruitless; if you’re not
getting an inch closer or even falling further away from where you want to be,
you should probably reconsider the situation. Sadly, it’s common for individuals
to fall into traps like these, for instance: thinking they can change another
person’s mind (especially a relationship partner), or that it’s their
responsibility to stand by their business even if it’s in a dying industry (and
lose all their money in the process).
Therefore,
misapplying the responsibility assumption can carry some pretty serious
consequences. However, these consequences pale in comparison to the
consequences suffered by individuals who feel, every day, that the life they’re
living is not theirs to control. These frustrated individuals are slaves to
their own minds and slaves to society. Recognize that while some things are in
your control, other things aren’t. However, make this distinction very
carefully. There are going to be far more situations in which you do have
control than you’ve been taught to believe. Far more than people will tell you
to believe. So while it’s important to let go of the things that you don’t
control, look to take charge whenever you can. It
is better to assume you can mould your own circumstances and be wrong, than to
assume you are powerless and be right.
One
thing you definitely have control over is ignoring excuses your mind makes.
Don’t believe yourself when your mind tells you you’re not good enough. Don’t believe
your immediate instinct to label something as impossible. Is it really
impossible? Isn’t there something you could do to make it happen? More often
than not, there will be a way. So ignore your mind’s silly defense mechanisms,
keep your eye on your goal, and do what it takes to get there. You won’t always
know exactly what you’re doing, but if you take responsibility for getting
there, you’ll figure it out along the way.
Share this
EmoticonEmoticon