How to Stop Waiting for the World to Change
Back in 2006, musician John Mayer, released a song for millions of 21st century young adults. It was called, “Waiting on the World to Change.” Here's a quick reminder of some of the lyrics:
Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it.
So, we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change.
While the tempo is upbeat and cheerful, the lyrics represent a melancholy, even despondent mood. They express a powerlessness to make any difference, that the power lies with “the man.” So, our job, Mayer notes, is to wait for the needed change. Instead of taking charge of my life, just wait for external change to happen.
This may explain the cynical, even jaded, mood of millions of people.
A Shift in Culture
Over the last sixty years, young people have slowly drifted toward this mindset. Research psychologist, Dr. Julian Rotter created a scale to measure whether graduates were entering their careers with an external or internal locus of control. Here’s what he measured:
Internal locus of control represents a mindset that believes you are responsible and in control of your own success.
External locus of control represents a mindset which believes that somehow fate or external forces control your outcomes.
Interestingly, nine years into his research, Dr. Rotter discovered that those who maintain an internal locus of control become measurably more successful in life. They take better care of their health and fitness, their marriage and family, and their job and career. It makes sense. If we believe our success is up to us, we take ownership of our behavior and attitude. This is good news. The bad news, however, is sobering. Since Julian Rotter first administered these evaluations in 1954, people have shifted toward an external locus of control. They’re looking outward to someone else to ensure their success—mom, dad, employer, counselor, or coach.
We can only assume why this might be. Perhaps they’re scared or uncertain about life. It might be they’re simply overwhelmed. Maybe they think no one is really in control. This, however, leads to feeling like someone else owes you.
Are We Benchwarmers?
Consider this: we approach life either as players in the game or substitutes on the bench.
Athletes feel something completely different based on whether they are in the competition or on the bench during a tough game. From the bench, you can yell and scream, stand up, or squeeze a towel in your hands, but that’s it. You can’t directly impact the outcome when you’re not actually playing. It’s only when you’re playing in the game, that you feel different.
The key shifts we must make to return to an internal locus of control:
How we see our life. (Our perception)
How we approach our life. (Our practice)
We must stop looking at externals that may go wrong. That’s not in our control. Life will give us lemons, as they say. We must focus on how we perceive it all, concentrating on our responses to the lemons, not the lemons themselves. That’s in our control. Once we nail our perception of life, maintaining a “control the controllable” mindset, life gets better.
Next, we must act in response to that internal mindset.
Arthur Brooks, one of my favorite authors, recently released a book called, Build the Life You Want. In it, he tells the story of his mother-in-law, who, at age 93, was one of the happiest people he’d ever known. Her name was Alpina, and she lived in her room alone, impoverished and dying after a long life. But she was happy. The reason? Somehow, at age 45, “she stopped waiting for the world to change” and took control of her life.”
How Do We Do This?
1️⃣ First, Alpina began to look for decisions in her life where once there were only impositions. For example, Alpina once felt she was stuck in a bad job at a pitiful company. Then she awakened to the fact that she’d been CEO all along. She couldn’t snap her fingers, and all would be perfect, but she had power over her own life, embracing an internal locus of control.
2️⃣ Second, she took action based on that realization. She switched from wishing others were different to working on the one person she could control: herself. The choices she made, not her feelings at the time, led her to transform less productive emotions into positive ones like humor, gratitude, hope and compassion. Happiness was not a chase but a choice.
3️⃣ Third, managing herself freed Alpina to focus on the foundations on which she could construct a much better life: her family, her friendships, her work and her faith. Instead of numbing their pain, these types of people think and act differently. Oprah Winfrey calls them the “people who have every reason to be unhappy and yet are not.” They’re the “lemonade-making, silver-linings-finding, bright-side-looking, glass-half-fullers.”
This completely removes the chore of waiting for the world to change.