I haven’t written a general “shit you should know from psychology” post for a while, so I guess we’re due. You can consider this a supplement to (and a motivation for) the 60 DoD this year.

Today my maggots, we will discuss an oldie but a goodie: Locus of Control. This idea is one that is fairly commonsense once you read it, but was only formalized in the 1950s by Julian Rotter. Put simply, Rotter asks us a simple question: do you believe that your life (and thus your actions) are under your control, or not? For Rotter and the psychologists this is a personality trait, meaning you either have an internal (yes, I’m in the driver’s seat) or an external (I’m just along for the ride) locus of control, and that’s how you roll in life. For our purposes, we can adapt it and use it in a more nuanced way, since most of us probably are not consistent enough to be all one or the other, and it can change anyway.

Some of the seminal work on this theory was how undergraduate students attributed their success or failure on tests. Those with internal loci of control would explain bad grades as not having studied enough, and good grades as excellent preparation. External loci of control would do the opposite: good grades are luck, bad grades are a poor instructor. This has ties to Attribution Theory as well, where you apply these types of lenses to others (your classmate got a good grade because he is lucky vs. he is really smart).

The whole basis of MRP and the central idea of 60 DoD are both that you indeed can change. In order for that to be true, it implies that you have an internal locus of control. Those guys who have an external locus of control either never try our program or come here and start prattling on in a way that earns them a Rule 9 ban. Think on that for a moment: the guys who babble all about their wife are not only focused on the wrong things, but they likely have an implicit belief that the things that happen to, for, and with them are out of their control. If you are going to swim here and not sink like a stone, you’ll have to change that. That’s why we tell you to focus inward, and we remind you that in the end the only thing you truly can control is yourself. You learn to master the self, and then set boundaries for everyone and everything else.

Now, what about situational application, which my last paragraph hints at? There are indeed things in our world that will be out of your control. You can influence some of them (and you’d be a fool not to try in some cases), but we must recognize that not everything is controllable. This is the truth of the Serenity Prayer, recited by AA attendees everywhere:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

Your first piece of wisdom is to start thinking on things in this light. Ask yourself, “Was I in control of any part of that situation? How? What could I have done differently to influence the outcome, even if I wasn’t in total control?” In reference to changing your thoughts and default actions, you need only remember that you can indeed change your “inner self”. You can change your attitudes, you can change your behaviors, and you can become the guy you’ve always wanted to be.

So start right now. Start by Owning Your Shit and click your Locus of Control setting over to Internal. There is no other way forward.