Somebody else painted most of the finish lines you’re racing toward. Check if you even want to cross them.

Goals get inherited early enough that they stop looking like choices. The school, the score, the title, the number of people who know your name, most of it arrived from parents or a group chat or the general air of the place you grew up. An inherited goal feels identical to your own, right up until you get there and feel nothing. The checking has to happen before the end, not after.

Take one thing you are working hard for and ask who first put it in front of you. Then ask what you would want if they never had. Some survive the question, and those are the real ones.