I was once in a karate tournament and was about to perform a Kata in front of a couple hundred people. I got in my place, looked around at the stands full of people, many of whom I knew, and I froze. The judge called out, “Name and Kata” and I had nothing. I just stared. My friend was in the front row mouthing my name to me, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, but I could not figure out what he was trying to say.
I had no intention of doing this tournament, but when I got to the arena my friends talked me into it. I didn’t have my gear so I had to use a borrowed Gi. In dark black marker down the lapel of the borrowed Gi was the name Monica. Monica, the judge shouted at me. Your name is Monica. That didn’t sound right, but I said okay and mumbled which Kata I was going to perform and rushed through the worst performance of my life, screwing up most of the moves. I remember it like it was yesterday.
It wasn’t until many years later that I learned the concept of locus of control and realized what happened in that moment. I had become externally located in the judges and the crowd and completely lost my ability to perform a kata that I knew like the back of my hand. In sports it’s called the yips, when a great player gets in their head and loses all access to their talent.
What is your locus of control?
Basically, your locus of control is an internal estimation of who or what is driving the success in your life. If you are internally located, you attribute the cause of your success to your own actions, your ability to learn, enroll others in your plans, and reach your goals. If you are externally located, you believe that your success is in the hands of outside forces like luck, chance, or powerful others. You are not the primary driver.
Understanding the experience of locus of control is where the concept really come to life. Feeling internally located is when you know you can reach your goals. You can stand in front of a room of people and perform your best and have a great time doing it. You don’t see people as a block to where you’re going, but as a source of good feedback to make yourself better. You have plans you believe in and know you can do the work to get there and enroll the right people to make it happen. Basically, you are the eye of the storm and nobody’s victim, and you reach the goals you’re trying to achieve.
If you are externally located, you have that terrible feeling of looking at yourself through the eyes of others, and you don’t know how to impress them. It’s a sort of self-consciousness, but so much worse. Advertising and influencers count on you to be externally located in what they’re trying to sell. “If you drive this car, everyone will think…” We as a species are really vulnerable to what others think and can spend a lot of time and money trying to be someone or something others will approve of.
Locus of control is one of the programs in the Layer 2 work, the psychological foundation that determines how you show up in every interaction. (Learn more about the Three Layers here.)
When it comes to work, being externally located is a disaster
The minute you have someone else in your head who you’re trying to impress or get to think something of you, you are unable to access your true talent and creativity. You will not say what you really think out of fear of rejection. You will compete with teammates who get more attention than you. You will make decisions based on what you think others want instead of what you actually believe is right. You will get overlooked for promotions and not understand why, because you think you are checking all the boxes.
But here’s the good news. You can shift your locus of control from external to internal. It’s not easy, and it doesn’t happen without effort. It requires awareness of when you’re externally located. It requires naming the voices in your head that are running your decision-making, and it requires making a different choice about where your focus actually belongs.
The next time you’re in a meeting and you feel that familiar tightness in your chest, that sense that you need to be careful about what you say or how you come across, you have a choice. You can stay externally located in what others think, or you can bring yourself back to what you know, what you believe, and what you’re trying to accomplish and speak from there.
Your talent is not in pleasing others, it is sharing all the things you know so you can help drive your own success and the success of your team.