Ambition: Why It's Good to Want More and How to Get It

3 Make a plan

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In the 1970s there was a hugely popular comedy series on television called The Good Life. It followed the fictional exploits of Tom and Barbara Good, a married couple who decided to turn their backs on conventional modern life and try to become self-sufficient by growing their own food and keeping livestock. The comic twist was that instead of living in the countryside, they lived in a suburban semi-detached house in Surrey.

They planted fruit and vegetables in their garden and got some chickens and pigs, a goat and a cockerel. They made their own clothes and even tried to generate their own electricity from animal waste, their attempts watched with bafflement ...