Internal Locus of Control: Weeding Out the Noise and Finding Your Focus

We're all navigating an environment that reminds us daily that nothing is certain. It's easy to get distracted with competing priorities, constant messaging and nonstop news alerts. So how do we know what to tune out and where to tune in? The answer may be simple but not necessarily easy to figure out. It starts with identifying what our locus of control is.

What does Locus of Control mean?

First, let’s get clear on what the phrase, ‘locus of control,’ even means and what it has to do with our experiences of our career and life. Locus of control is a psychological concept that refers to a person's belief about the extent to which they can control the events in their life. The concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954 and has since become an aspect of psychology. It refers to an individual's perception about the underlying main causes of events in his/her life.

Locus of control is broken into two categories – internal and external. An external locus of control mindset shows up when we attribute our life’s experiences and outcomes to external factors outside of our control. A heavy focus on fending off ‘bad luck’ circumstances and hoping for ‘good luck’ to clear away problems tends to show up. When change becomes rapid and chaotic it is easy to be pulled into many directions and become primarily reactive to outside factors.

This can be a very stressful way to navigate our work and life. It points to a lack of trust in our ability to generate solutions and create the experiences we want to have. There is a passiveness that tends to show up. It’s the equivalent of hoping for good things but not taking any action to make that a reality.

An internal locus of control mindset shifts the focus from what’s coming in at the individual to what the individual ultimately wants to achieve. Their circumstances may have the same level of chaos, uncertainty and noise. However, they are committed to a bigger picture purpose or goal. This transforms their environment from a mine field to be wary of and reactive to into an obstacle course to navigate as they move towards achieving their goals. There is proactive movement and action taken towards that goal.

What do we need to develop and engage our internal locus of control?

Build your self-esteem. A big step towards harnessing our internal locus of control is a belief in our own worth and capabilities. This is where self-care and well-being are paramount. Knowing that we are worth caring for builds the foundation for us to do big things. But if we constantly de-prioritize ourselves for all the ‘fires’ that we are faced with in our day-to-day we won’t have the energy to do what’s needed to achieve our goals. Or what may be worse, we may not even think we have goals worthy of achieving.

Hone your self-control. The discipline to sacrifice in the short-term to achieve what we want in the long-term is a critical aspect of leveraging and staying in our sense of internal locus of control. It is often easier to sit and wallow in what we don’t want vs. striking out on the uncertain path and believing we can create what we want. A practice of discipline of beneficial habits, that we commit to in our day-to-day, can make or break our ability to stay centered.

Cultivate your positive imagination. If you can only see what’s tangible and in front of you there will be no reason to venture out into the unknown. But we have to be careful to tap into our positive imaginations. When we sit in an external locus of control mindset our negative imagination tends to work overtime. We being to make negative predictions about the future and we believe it will help us prepare for the worst. However, it can also cause us to freeze in place and feel helpless.

When we engage our imaginations to conjure up what we want to see we are connecting to what makes us want to move towards something. This is an, often overlooked, aspect of being able to prioritize what matters. We need a vision that is more appealing than the millions of items trying to pull our attention.

As we move into the new year, we need to embrace the reality that the noise and constant demands for our attention are not going to die down. It will be up to us to determine what we want to ultimately focus on for the year and beyond. What impact do you want to make? Who do you want to help? What do you want to create? —

Just like planning a trip, we need to identify where we’re going, then we can decide what matters most in our journey to getting there. Our external environment will make it easy to get distracted or exhausted if we don’t carve out a purpose. That purpose is the true north we can use to identify our priorities, what matters and maybe more importantly, what doesn’t.