What Is the Locus Rule and How You Can Apply It?



Everyone probably knows Bear Grills, a 47-year-old British adventurer who is popularly known for his reality show called ‘Man vs Wild’ on the Discovery channel.

How many of you know that this explorer had survived a tragedy that happened 25 years ago? Doctors said that he couldn’t survive, he couldn’t walk and was paralyzed. 

But that 21 years old spent one year rehabbing the injury while preparing to climb Mt.Everest. What do you think stimulated him? A 10-letter word called motivation. He was motivated not to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Motivation

Motivation is a reason or set of reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way. It is an important life skill. It is essential because it makes you work harder and helps you achieve your goal. To stay motivated or to gain motivation, one should follow few things. 

The first thing is that to believe in yourself and to have control over your life. Many successful people use a motivation rule called ‘The Locus Rulewhich helped them stay motivated when things aren’t going their way. 

Let’s learn about this key to motivation. 

What Is The Locus Rule?

The theory of locus rule comes from the idea of the locus of control. It means the degree to which you believe that you have control over your life and things around you. 

This theory was proposed by Julian.B.Rotter, the psychologist who originally developed the Locus of Control concept. Taking responsibility for things that happened in one’s life keeps one motivated. That is stated in the locus rule.

Study On The Locus Rule

A study was conducted by Prof.Claudia.M.Mueller in1998 at Columbia University. She took a group of 5th graders and asked them to solve a set of hard puzzles by themselves. No matter how well each kid did, they told them that they scored well and did better than most of the kids. After some time, half of the kids were told that they scored well because of smart work and the other half because of hard work. 

They then asked both groups to solve three more puzzles. They were defined as the easy, the medium, and the hard. The smart workgroup spends too much of the given time solving the easy ones and less time on the harder ones. The hard work group spends most of the time solving the harder puzzle and they also spent more time solving the overall puzzle.

The Outcome Of The Study

The smart ones spent too much of their time attempting the easy one. They couldn’t even solve one of the puzzles. It was a sign of a lower level of motivation. But the hardworking kids spent their time solving the hard one, thus making an attempt to solve all of the puzzles and they did. It was a sign of an increasing level of motivation. After the study, both the group kids were asked if they enjoyed solving the puzzle, the answer was obvious. 

The hardworking group enjoyed solving because they solved all of them. The smarter ones didn’t enjoy solving because they couldn’t. The reason that the smarter ones couldn’t succeed was the outside factors they couldn’t control and the hardworking kids were the ones who believed in themselves.

Types Of Locus Rule

There are two types of locus of control that stimulate us to stay motivated:

  • External Locus Of Control: 

External factors like luck, environment, people, places that are out of one’s control. When people tend to believe that these factors decide their success, they become less motivated and failing in achieving their goals.

  • Internal Locus Of Control

Internal factors like believing in one’s self and staying discipline in own way. These things can be controlled other than blaming others and outside factors, If one starts believing themselves, it will be much easier in achieving their goals.

Conclusion

If one wants to feel motivated, he/she must feel that they have control over their life and they are the reason behind the things that happened. Studies like Prof.Claudia’s, have been conducted again and again, which shows that internal factors are the reason to stay motivated. 

How much work you put into something is something you have complete control over. So believe in yourself. This is the key to achieve your goals.


Written By - Riduvarshini
Edited By - AKash Verma