ABCDE – Locus of Control

ABCDE of Successful Mind Management: Locus of Control

LOCATING CONTROL

Where you attribute successes, to factors inside or outside yourself, is important to the understanding of  the nature of unhappy feelings. A variety of psychological research (eg: on victims, on prisoners, on psychiatric patients, on hostages) has suggested that the concept of “locus of control” is helpful in understanding human behaviour under certain conditions. If you have enough experiences to show you that you have some control over cause-and-effect, then you develop an “internal locus of control”, a sense of power over events, rather than being a victim of  the winds of fate and circumstance.

However if your experience is that what you do makes very little difference to what happens to you in the world,  you develop a sense of passivity and powerlessness. This is “external locus of control”. It is apparent that one’s locus of control has strong effects on one’s behaviour, and is in a complex relationship to age and circumstances. The more restrictions on your behaviour, the less you are able to maintain a sense of internal locus of control, a feeling of power over the world.

A sense of internal control is associated with a realistic world-view, initiative, responsibility, confidence and success. The techniques presented here are aimed at showing you that you can gain some degree of control over your negative feelings. It may be far from an ideal world, but it is certainly possible to reduce your negative feelings considerably. By doing so you can gain more time for positive feelings.

When you can do this, there will be flow-on effects into other areas of your life. You will find yourself attempting things you have not done before, and with a general sense of goodness, rightness and well being that you did not have before. Control over negative feelings results in a greater sense of internal control generally. You will be able to see that there are always opportunities to take charge of things, to exert some influence over what happens to you.

WHAT IF CONTROL IS EXTERNAL?

What if events are controlled externally and one’s degree of power is limited. What do you do then?

1. Pump Up Internal Control

Even though external control might be happening, there are usually a number of things you can do to alleviate the situation. It is a matter of focusing on those things that you can control, rather than those you can’t.

Concentrate on strengths and successes rather than weaknesses or losses

Tackle only a few situations at once instead of trying to cope with the many expectations that other people might have for what you “should” do.

Be constantly aware that your thinking has a bad habit of attributing successes to externals and concentrating only on the negative aspect of things. Try to catch this habit as it occurs, to become aware of it, and try to consider alternative explanations for things.

2. Accept Control Gracefully

Sometimes there’s little option but to accept control gracefully and try to make the best of it. Take note that there’s usually a positive aspect to most things. It’s all a matter of what you choose to pay attention to. Someone with physical handicaps might still be able to become a world reknowned physicist – Stephen Hawking.

MASTERY Vs. HELPLESSNESS

A strong internal locus of control usually results in a sense of mastery over various aspects of your world. However a strong external locus of control easily develop into a deep sense of helplessness, a fatalistic and passive acceptance of whatever happens.

Helplessness is the concept that no matter what you do, something external will control the final outcome. If this is so then why bother trying anything at all. Helplessness can develop after a series of events indicating that you have very little control over your world. Eventually you learn to behave in a way that gives control to other people and situations, leaving you helpless.

Anxious people tend to attribute their feelings of helplessness to personal, general permanent causes. This is known as their explanatory style. It means they tend not to try anything because they might fail, because they’ve always been a failure and can never change. Try interpreting your helplessness in ways that are more specific and transient, and you’ll begin to notice things that you could have control over.

CONFIDENCE:

Confidence is the end result of this process. The sense of a degree of control over the world and what happens to you breeds more general feelings of mastery. This then becomes part of your world view. When things happen, you believe that you are capable of mastering the situation. Those who manage to confront and handle their fears but attribute their success to factors other than themselves continue to have low self-confidence.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM

Whilst you are working on dealing with your negative feelings, focusing on increasing internal control and restructuring you thinking patterns you will notice that you start to feel better about yourself and have more positive feelings. The following are some further ideas on how to boost you self-esteem.

1. Examine your thinking to become aware of beliefs that prevent you feeling good about yourself.  What alternative beliefs can you develop to help you feel good?
2. Be more aware of your self- talk. Remember that you can often have distorted thinking. Do not leave it unchallenged.
3. Separate yourself from your behaviour. For example if you make a mistake that does not mean you are always clumsy. Just like anyone else you can be clumsy at times.
4. Cue cards- Write positive statements on small cards and keep them in your bag or wallet. True positive statements are the building blocks of self-esteem.
5. Learn to mange emotions and fears more effectively through learning skills that can help you to feel more in control in situations.
6. Regularly participate in activities that make you feel good about yourself.. This is where setting goals and achieving them is very important.
7. Accept yourself for who you are. Be yourself and enjoy your experiences. Try to avoid comparing yourself to others
8. Write down all the things you like about yourself. If you can’t think of any, ask your friends, partner, or family members. Refer to the list frequently
9. Discover and exercise your skills, talents and abilities to the full.
10. Find activities, sports or hobbies that you enjoy and do them them regularly.
11. Accept compliments and acknowledgements from others gracefully. Don’t invalidate their positive thoughts and feeling about you. Don’t be embarrassed, just say thank you and enjoy it.
12. Observe yourself for one day without judgement. This means no labels, categories, put downs or name-calling. See how you feel during and at the end of the day.
13. Finally, avoid trying to justify your existence to others or to your self. See yourself as being of equal worth to others.

Practise one distraction technique daily.

Practise one session of muscle relaxation per day.

Practise controlled breathing at least once per day.