Some goals came from you. Some came from relatives at Thanksgiving. Sort them before you spend four years on the wrong pile.

Ambitions arrive from more than one direction and they do not come labelled. A relative asks what you are going to be, you give an answer that pleases the table, and after a few repetitions it becomes the plan. It feels like yours because you have been saying it for two years, which is not the same as choosing it.

Take each goal and ask who is pictured being pleased when you reach it. If the answer is a specific person at a table rather than you, that one needs another look. Four years is a long time to spend on somebody else’s answer.