Locus of Control - n/a when there's sharks about!

Principles into Practice with Kain Ramsay

The Internal Vs. External Locus Of Control People who base their success in life upon their own efforts and believe that they are in complete control of their life outcomes have what we would call an internal locus of control. You might be able to recognize someone with an internal locus of control through his or her relentlessly stubborn and highly driven nature (of which I can often be found guilty). In contrast to this, people who will assign their successes and failures in life to other people, or factors and influences outside of themselves have what we’d call an external locus of control. You’d likely be able to recognize someone with an external locus of control through highly visible insecurity, low confidence and low self-esteem (I lived in this camp for a while but got very bored of it). Let’s say for example that you're the kind of person who has an internal locus of control and you get a promotion at work or achieve some other type of success. You’d most likely assign your achievement to the hard work and efforts you put in. In other words, your success and achievements came as a direct result of your efforts and hard work. If, on the other hand, you had an external locus of control, you might be more inclined to attribute your promotion or achievement to external or environmental factors, such as luck, fate, timing, other people or some type of divine intervention (religious people can be good at this). Let's use the same example and say that you were denied a promotion that you’d worked long hours and very hard for. If your locus of control were internal, you’d be likely to somehow find a way to blame yourself and beat yourself up for this perceived failure. If however, your locus of control were external, you’d find very easy to blame peers, the boss for being and idiot, or any other outside source that was completely beyond your control. Here demonstrates the Victim Mentality! In the story you'll hear in this video - there are sometimes situations which you can find yourself which only 'God Alone' can get you out of! Having a stubborn Internal Locus of Control at times such as these can cause you NO END of internal dialogue and trauma!