External vs. Internal Locus of Control (Self Check Quiz)

External vs. Internal Locus of Control Self Check Quiz

External vs. Internal Locus of Control Self Check Quiz

Personal Self-Check

Where Is Your Sense of Control?

Your locus of control is the way you tend to understand the relationship between your choices and what happens in your life. Do you generally experience yourself as someone who can influence what happens, or do you tend to experience life as something that happens to you?

Take the Self-Check

Answer each statement according to how you actually tend to think and behave. Do not choose the answer you believe is the “better” answer. Choose the one that feels most familiar.

Use the full scale. Some situations may feel completely outside your control. Others may feel strongly influenced by your own choices. Notice where you naturally fall rather than trying to produce a particular result.
Your progress 0 of 12 answered
Question 1 of 12
When something important goes wrong in my life, I tend to think:
Question 2 of 12
When I want something in my life to change, my first instinct is to:
Question 3 of 12
When I experience repeated setbacks, I tend to believe:
Question 4 of 12
When another person makes a choice that affects me, I tend to focus on:
Question 5 of 12
When I think about my future, I generally feel that:
Question 6 of 12
When I feel stuck, I am most likely to:
Question 7 of 12
When someone criticizes or rejects me, I tend to experience their reaction as:
Question 8 of 12
When I want to accomplish something important, I believe success depends mostly on:
Question 9 of 12
When circumstances do not go according to plan, I usually:
Question 10 of 12
When I complain about something repeatedly, I eventually ask myself:
Question 11 of 12
When I think about a difficult situation, I naturally notice:
Question 12 of 12
When I ask myself what determines the direction of my life, my answer is closest to:
More externally oriented More internally oriented
Please answer all 12 questions before viewing your result.
Your Locus of Control Pattern

External Internal
What this may look like
Your next question

Now Make It Personal

The most useful part of this exercise is not the number. It is seeing exactly where you give your power away and exactly where you still have something to work with.

Be specific. Name the actual situation rather than describing your entire life.
Separate facts from everything you wish you could determine.
Consider your decisions, behavior, attention, boundaries, communication, preparation, assumptions, and responses.
Complete the sentence honestly: “I have been waiting for ______ to change before I allow myself to ______.”
Make it concrete. What can you actually choose, say, stop, start, change, communicate, or do?
Write from the position of the person who recognizes their own agency.

The Agency Question

When you notice yourself thinking, “I can’t do anything about this,” stop and separate the situation into two parts: What is not mine to control? And then: What is still mine?

Reclaiming Agency

You do not need to control everything to have agency. You need to recognize where your choices still matter and begin there.

This exercise is designed for self-reflection. Locus of control is not fixed, and a person’s responses can change across different situations and periods of life.

Worksheet | Printable Self-Compassion Check-In