Abstract
Life Control is the capacity to remain an active and effective director of one’s life under changing and constrained conditions. Existing psychological theories explain important elements of agency, motivation, self-regulation, resilience, and flexibility, but do not integrate the broader patterns through which people direct different parts of their lives. This article proposes Life Control as a framework of ten dimensions organised across four domains: Self, Growth, Others, and Life Organisation. The dimensions describe distinct but interacting tendencies involving emotional regulation, self-understanding, effort, responses to adversity, practical responsibility, relationships, and the allocation of personal and material resources. The theory also proposes four connecting claims. Self-direction is recursive because present actions shape both later capacities and future conditions. Rationality keeps action responsive to evidence, while a spark of delusion permits action before success is assured. Psychologically formative activities develop or maintain capacities through participation, and the Non-Outsourcing Principle predicts that assistance supports Life Control when it preserves such participation but may weaken it when it repeatedly replaces it. The framework generates testable predictions concerning the dimensions, their combinations, development over time, and the consequences of different forms of assistance.