It’s a question so rarely asked it almost feels silly to ask it.

Some situations and some jobs work to eliminate our freedom of choice. Prison, medical school, 8th grade–there are settings where time, tools, and options are severely limited.

But even in these settings, we have more choice than we realize.

And for the rest of us, particularly freelancers and entrepreneurs, our agenda is wide open.

Who decides what you will eat tonight, or what you will do after dinner? Who decides who you will call on, what you will learn next, which posts you’ll read (or write)? Who decides what tone the conversation will have, what your priorities are, and what you’ll worry about when you walk the dog?

There’s the agenda of the next five minutes as well as one for the next five days. And the process of getting to five years from now is so fraught or uncharted that we hesitate to even talk about it.

It may be that the key building block to success (and even to happiness) is getting your agenda aligned with your goals, your dreams, and your fears.