What Every Smart Person Should Know
In 1984, Claudia Muller, a graduate student at Columbia State University, performed a fascinating study. She took 412 five graders (10 to 12 years) and had them do some tests. She then divided the students into two groups.
To the first group, she said, “You must have been really smart to score so high,” and to the second group, “You must have worked really hard at the problems.”
After this, she gave the students another test. The results of the second test remain intriguing to this day! Students praised for being smart performed poorly at the most challenging problems. On the other hand, students who were praised for working hard were enthusiastic. They also put extra effort into trying to solve the hardest of problems.
The Locus of Control
Claudia’s experiment is an excellent introduction to what psychologists call the locus of control. The locus of control refers to what extent you think you are in charge of outcomes in your life.
In this case, when the ‘smart students’ encountered challenging problems, they felt helpless. After all, they were “smart by default” and there’s nothing they could do about it. In other words, their locus of control was external. But for the ‘hardworking students,’ how hard they worked was entirely up to them meaning their locus of control was internal.
The locus of control greatly impacts how your life turns out. Research shows that believing you control your fate will increase your motivation to take action. On the other hand, if you believe you have no power over outcomes in your life, you will be less likely to act toward change.
In her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol S Dweck goes deep into this phenomenon. Her conclusion: smart people are likely to give up early and dismiss hard work as a contributor to their success.
To gauge your thinking on this, here are two important questions to ask yourself: do you believe you can change your life’s circumstances? How does that reflect in your everyday decisions?
Before answering these questions, think about it for a moment. What is your primary emotion, is it fear or courage? Do you welcome new challenges in your life? Or are you always looking for familiar experiences?
If you are always looking for familiar experiences, you probably have an external locus of control. You likely worry about what others will think after you flank that exam, or lose that job. But with an internal locus of control, none of that matters. In fact, each failed attempt will give you valuable lessons on what to do next.
Why? Because you are not afraid of learning. You are also convinced that nothing in your life, including your ability to speak, read, or walk came by default. It took so many painful lessons. It took years of learning and practice.
As an adult, you have come to think that some things are beyond you but as Carol Dweck rightly points out, that is not the case. The reality is, we are all capable of incredible stuff. And it all starts with changing your locus of control.
How to Change your locus of control
Talking about the locus of control this way is easy, but how do you make a shift in mindset from having an external locus of control to an internal one? First, let’s look at how a child innocently comes to believe that they are limited.
Brian was a shy, fun boy who scored highly during his tentative years at school. Naturally, his parents showered him with praises every time he performed well, but Brian’s performance started to deteriorate as the years went by. The reason is evident when you consider what happens at school; the topics become progressively more challenging, thus requiring extra effort.
To Brian, this extra difficulty came to symbolize a challenge to his ‘smartness,’ so he started avoiding situations that proved he was not smart. Brian’s behavior is characteristic of what Carol Dweck refers to as a fixed mindset. Fixed mindsets develop when children are praised for things they have no control over like how smart or beautiful they are.
Brian’s behavior is in contrast to that of Alice, a girl in the same class. Her parents always praised her for her hard work even when they knew she was probably smart to begin with. When things got difficult, Alice would dig deep, and sure enough, she would triumph.
If you are an adult reading this, your story mirrors either that of Brian or Alice. There are no two ways about it. You either think you get what you deserve by working hard at it or are stuck in life because there’s nothing you can do about it.
But as you can tell, it is all in the mind. It is something you can change. By taking the following steps, you can easily change your locus of control:
Learn to take responsibility for everything you do
Whenever I’m stuck with something, I employ a nifty little trick that involves asking what is the smallest thing I can do. Often, there is always something. It can be as simple as adding just one more sentence to an article that’s taking too long to finish or completing a two-minute task before going to bed.
So, start by asking yourself the same question. What is the littlest thing I can do? You do might not change the situation you are in immediately but it does confirm something very powerful, that your actions matter.
In the Magic of Thinking Big, David J Schwartz writes:
“Look at things not as they are, but as they can be. Visualization adds value to everything. A big thinker always visualizes what can be done in the future. He isn’t stuck with the present”
If you can visualize your solution or life journey as a series of steps, it is easy to make these steps and achieve the goals you set out to. Describe each step in as much detail as possible. And as you complete each step, take a pause and celebrate.
Celebrating those small victories will make it easier on you to continue on the journey.
Focus on the solutions, not on the problems
When bad things happen in life, we tend to spend lots of time thinking about the problem and not enough time figuring out solutions. The way to change this approach is to acknowledge that life will always be full of challenges. And here is a thing that you already know, the less prepared you are, the more the challenges are likely to hit you hard. And how do you stay prepared? By being proactive and anticipating problems as they come. Each problem you solve will give you the courage to forge ahead. In other words, constantly test yourself.
Trust the process
Few people know how Benjamin Franklin came to be one of the greatest writers of his generation. Well, he started by reading the Spectator — a newspaper from his time — and trying to rewrite his favorite pieces from scratch.
Over many months, he was able to improve his writings to match that of the editors and even surpass them in quality. Benjamin would go on to become a scientist, entrepreneur, diplomat, statesman, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
His shining example is one of many that show if you trust the process, things will always work out in your favor.
In summary, having an internal locus of control is one of the best things that can happen to you. It will add vitality and focus to everything you do and your life will be so much better.
