Stop Making Excuses – The Locus Of Control

There have been times in my life where I’ve needed a real kick up the arse to stop making excuses. Luckily I have a partner who is only too willing to provide said K.U.T.A. ! But joking aside it’s a battle I’m gradually winning and these days I’m much more able to stop making excuses without anyone else’s guiding foot. I’ve stopped using the word “but” for example and I’ve stopped spending too long considering the consequences of my decisions and started living in the now.

It’s all about overcoming automatic, ingrained thought patterns that served us well in the dim and distant past but don’t anymore. The fight or flight syndrome was great when stepping out of our caves meant facing all kinds of real danger, now though it can seriously hold us back in life.

If we recognise it for what it is we can start to examine it properly and use it to stop making excuses that keep us stuck in situations we hate. In todays world a good example might be a strong desire to escape the 9-5 lifestyle. The benefits of doing that are huge but the excuses not to are often bigger – if we let them be. Like with everything its all in the mind. As Henry Ford famously said – “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”

Is Your Locus In or Out – Who’s Pulling The Strings?

There’s a great concept known as the locus of control. It deals with where the control over your life actually lives. Is it External: Someone or something else has control or Internal: You have control.

It’s about taking personal responsibility – whether your locus of control is internal: You assume responsibility for your actions and believe you can control your life. Or external: Blaming fate or others and not owning your mistakes or failures.

Lets look at the example of escaping the 9-5 from both sides of the locus of control. Some of the excuses that might crop up would be:

But I don’t know how to…

But I can’t afford to…

But What if I fail…

But I’d lose all this security…

No Buts About It

If your locus of control is external all these buts would basically kill things stone dead. It would allow the “buts” to pass the blame on elsewhere.

If your locus of control is internal you’d take on the responsibility of working out: Where to learn what you need to; how to raise the finances; how to deal with failure how to create security.

Actually on the last point – security in a 9-5 world really is a thing of the past. No one these days can fall back on the excuse that they were promised a job for life.

In these fast-changing times we really need to make our locus of control internal. We need to stop making excuses and realize that if we don’t take personal responsibility for our destiny things could get rough.