Balanced Locus of Control

Your answers don't plant a flag at either pole. You take responsibility where your choices genuinely matter, and you don't burn energy blaming yourself for things that were never yours to control. That blend is exactly what most research points to as the healthiest place to sit — not indecision, but range. Picture a project that goes sideways: you ask the useful question — what could I have done differently? — take the lesson, and then stop short of concluding the whole thing was your fault when half of it was timing and other people. You hold both truths at once: I have real influence, and I'm not all-powerful. The one genuinely hard part of living here is the judgment call itself — which situations are worth pushing on, and which are worth accepting. You won't always read it right, and that's fine; stay curious about that line rather than fixed on it. Treat this as a check-in rather than a label — the balance you've found can still shift with what life throws at you, and it's worth protecting.