Motivating Yourself: The Locus Rule
Simi Here!
Not long ago, I came across an awesome YouTube video that explained something that I agree with very much. The goal of the video was to enlighten us on how we can maintain our level of motivation even in the face of adversity. My main take-away was this:
You are in control.
An understanding of this has helped me to maintain peace and perseverance in areas where I could have given up. Beliefs that fall in line with this demonstrate having an internal locus of control. To understand what that means, let’s first look at what it means to have an external locus of control.
When you have an external locus of control, you believe that the reasons for your results are based on innate qualities in you or other external factors. For instance, “I got a good grade because I am smart” or “I won the wrestling tournament because I am athletic“. But when things don’t go our way, we still believe that it is because of things we can’t control - “I failed the test because I am not smart“. When we think this way, we can even allow others to be the reasons for our success or failure - “I lost the match because she is athletic”.
I hope the benefit of having an internal locus of control is becoming clearer. An internal locus of control takes responsibility. It understands that your results are a product of your actions. I think believing that is POWERFUL. There will always be external factors but there is always something you can do. With a belief like that, there is little that can cap our motivation to keep trying. And it’s true that sometimes taking responsibility is harder than our other options. It’s easier to say that my bad grade was a result of my professor being disorganized than to say that MY habits were disorganized and resulted in my grade. But I urge you to stop doing things of that nature and start believing in your power to affect change in your life.
So I’ll leave you with this, Spider-man believed that with great power comes great responsibility. How about,
With great responsibility comes great power