in this video i'm going to teach you how to rewire your mindset using the locus rule and by
rewiring your brain you'll be far more likely to achieve higher grades in your next exam
it may just be the most important video i've made on this channel and you've probably
heard the quote with great power comes great responsibility well the flip side to that is that
with great responsibility comes great power and if we learn how to harness and implement this concept
into our lives it's extremely powerful so first let me explain what happened in the locus rule
experiment and then you'll understand what i'm talking about in 1998 at columbia university
a study was carried out on a large group of 10 and 11 year olds the students were asked
to work out a series of challenging puzzles by themselves after they had all finished each
student was individually told that they performed extremely well and that they managed to solve
more puzzles than the other students shortly after that 50 of the students were told that
they solved more puzzles than the other students because they worked hard and they never gave up
they just kept trying that's what they were told the other group the other 50 of the students were
told that they solved most puzzles as a result of them being naturally talented at solving puzzles
and in the final stage of the experiment the students were given a choice of three sets
of puzzles the first set were easy puzzles the second set were at medium difficulty
and the third set were difficult puzzles and it turns out that the students that were told that
they were naturally talented those students chose to solve the easy puzzles the majority of the time
they also overall spent far less time working on solving the puzzles showing a lack of motivation
and incentive furthermore when they were asked whether they had fun solving the puzzles
they replied that it wasn't that fun for them on the other hand the students that were told
that they did well solving the puzzles because of the hard work and effort that they put in
those students were far more likely to choose the puzzles that were more difficult and challenging
and they also spent far longer trying to solve the puzzles compared with the group that were
told that they were naturally talented suggesting that they were more motivated and finally when
they were asked whether they had fun solving the puzzles they replied that they enjoyed the puzzle
solving and this experiment conducted by professor claudia muller perfectly illustrates the locus of
control which is a concept that measures to what degree you believe you have control over your life
the students that were told they were naturally talented believe that they performed well solving
the puzzle because of factors outside of their control and that external factor being their
natural talent and this concept is called external locus of control on the other hand students that
were told that they performed well as a result of their work ethic and the effort that they put into
their puzzle solving those students believed that it was the factors that they were in control of
that led to the outcome this is called having an internal locus of control there have been multiple
studies on the locus of control that all point to the same direction having an internal locus of
control and realizing that there is a correlation between how much effort you put into your studying
and the grade you achieve in your exams the students that feel like they have control over
their life and that they are responsible for the things that happen to them are often the students
that achieve their highest grades and it took me a while to realize this so i adopted an external
locus of control for most of my life back in high school my grades were average at best but i didn't
even try to get better grades because i didn't think that i was smart enough or clever enough i
didn't think that i was capable of achieving among the top five percent in the class i felt like
nothing i did really mattered so i didn't even try and that's the problem with having an external
locus of control what's the point of studying if you're not clever enough to get high grades what's
the point of trying to apply for the highest ranked university if they only accept five percent
of candidates what's the point of trying to earn more money if the whole economic system is rigged
against you i realize now how problematic having that mindset really was eventually i did manage
to adopt an internal locus of control and rewire my mindset and realize that the results that i
was getting at high school were a direct result of the effort i was putting into my studying and once
i realized that once i deeply understood that on a visceral level that's when my life started
to make a complete transformation when i started university my grades improved exponentially and
so many more opportunities opened up because i was putting more effort into my studying
and into other areas of my life too so how exactly do you adopt an internal locus of control
one of the most effective ways is to realize that every time you solve a problem in your own life
it was you that solved that problem the actions that you took solved that problem so let me give
you an example let's say your grades are not where you want them to be you can do one of two things
you can adopt an external locus of control and blame your professor or blame your parents or your
financial position or the fact that you didn't have enough time to study for it
or you can adopt an internal locus of control and take an approach where you take accountability
for your exam grades and realize that it wasn't that you just didn't have enough time but it's
because you didn't manage your time well and you didn't prioritize your studying
and it's not because your lecturer didn't teach you the material well enough but it's because
you didn't do enough background reading and independent studying to understand the material
and having this mindset where whatever you're not happy with in your life whether it's your grades
your financial position your relationships you can do something about it you can fix those problems
blaming the government or the economy or pretty much any external factor
it's not going to fix your problems but if you make yourself accountable
and take extraordinary action in your life that's when you're able to turn things around and you
look back at your studying what grades you're getting if you're really honest with yourself
what did you do that you could have done better could you have started studying for your exam
sooner could you have procrastinated less could you have improved your diet because it's
answering these questions and then taking action to improve them that will get you your a plus in
your next exam and let me know in the comments what could you be doing better what could you
improve on where if you fix that one thing it would have the biggest impact on your grades
let me know in the comments i'm interested to see what you guys are having problems with
now after seeing all that there comes a point where you can adopt
such an internal locus of control that it actually becomes damaging and has a negative
effect on your life someone with too much internal locus of control can often experience overwhelming
anxiety as they keep blaming themselves and fixating on the things that they've done wrong
the perspective of having complete control or ownership in a situation is often a fallacy and
can lead to the same level of suffering as the person that has an extremely external mindset
so it's important to reach the right balance around the locus of control it shouldn't be an
extreme value at either side it's important to understand when you're genuinely a victim and
embracing when you have made a mistake and need to take responsibility so for example if you're
driving home and a deer runs out in front of you with no warning you weren't speeding you were
driving to the conditions of the road and you took every sensible precaution not to hit that deer
but you still hit it there's not much you could have done to avoid it in that situation
and someone with too much internal locus of control might blame themselves and feel extreme
sadness and regret but someone with the right balance of locus of control will realize that
some things are out of their control and the best they can do is react in a way that limits further
damage so the first step to taking back control of your exam grades or any other situation in your
life is all about knowing what you want in life so that you can focus on the most important things
that will help you move closer to your goals so for example if your goal in life is to become a
successful doctor then you need very good exam grades which will probably mean studying harder
or studying smarter in the book seven habits of highly effective people there's a concept known
as the circle of concern which has all the things that you are worried about inside it however you
can't control them now inside that circle is a smaller circle known as your circle of influence
and this is where proactive people spend their time so try splitting your problems goals or
concerns into things that you can control and things that you can't control then only focus
on the things that you can control so some of the things that can genuinely be out of your control
is the weather other people to some extent because you can often remove negative people
from your life and some circumstances such as when your flight is delayed or cancelled
and some things that you can control and these are really important your actions
your attitude and how you react to situations as charles swindle is quoted as saying life is 10
what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it earlier in the video i mentioned
how at high school i really did struggle a couple of weeks ago i uploaded a video on how i was able
to turn my grades around from getting d grades at high school to getting a grades at university you
can click on the video on the screen to watch it it was a long journey and i made a lot of mistakes
but i learned a lot on the way too but there were some very fundamental changes that i made
and i explained it all in the video that helped me make that transformation
and if you like this video i think you're gonna love this one so i'll see you over there