The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago; the second best is today. The point is that long-term goals only ever start from where you are, and the daily version matters more than the plan: what would you do today if this were already your work? If you do not know what to plant, plant something - direction becomes clear from motion, not from more deliberation.

What does planting a tree involve?

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In amongst the scheduling of consultations, facilitating tutorials and workshops I have been pondering my own life goals and aspirations. I have been trying to consider what I would like to achieve in the future and how can I go about achieving it.

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One way to approach this is rather than looking at the big picture, think about how you can spend each day doing some little action that works towards your goal. There are plenty of habits, or small actions, that are irrelevant by themselves, but create magic over time. Deliberately exercising my ACL operated knee only needs 10 minutes a day, but when you do it every single day for a whole year, you look back and think ‘I can finally play football again’. Score!

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This concept sounds simple enough but the thing is we desire everything that we do not have so we are often caught in this cycle of looking at the future and never working on the now. Yes it would have been great if you had mastered the Physics content by now for your exam, which is only a few months away. However all is not lost, after all:

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"The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is now."

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What if you don’t know what to plant (metaphorically speaking)?

I have since come across another tool which we can use to attack our problems and goals. Asking bigger and better questions?

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Lets say you are having difficulty understanding Genetic Mutations - you could approach it by asking yourself the question what are Genetic Mutations? Why does the education system want me to learn about Genetic Mutations? How does Genetic Mutations affect me/humans?

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Chances are one of these questions is going to lead you to the right understanding. If it doesn’t you simply ask a bigger and better question. You can apply this to your daily routine to help you focus on the right tasks.

What else is worth reading?

What are the honest limits of this piece?

This is an opinion piece rather than research: it argues from experience and from the sources it cites, and reasonable people disagree with it. Where it makes a factual claim, the sources below are the place to check it.

There is a free, government-run service for exactly this:

“We provide careers information, advice and guidance. We can help you make decisions at all stages in your career.” — National Careers Service

Where can you check this at source?

The claims here about work, money and how people rate their lives are measured nationally: