Check whose dream you’re working on. Sometimes it belongs to a parent, a coach or an algorithm.

Ambitions get installed from outside without anybody announcing it: a parent’s unfinished plan, a coach’s season, an app that rewards you for coming back. The work feels like yours because you are the one doing it. A fair test is who would be disappointed if you stopped, and whether you appear on that list at all.

Take whatever you are working hardest at and ask who it is for. If the honest answer is somebody else, decide whether you still want it, and say so before another year goes by.