You have your long-term goal, or even if you don’t, you have a general direction you’re heading towards. Project within a project is the idea that you take your long term goal or direction and split it into workable chunks on the mid-term, say two years, but my idea is that this is separate from your main gig.

For example, I spent the first two years of my stint as an ALT studying for N1 on the JLPT. I did that. And my next challenge was my MA. I did that. Both of these things were for my long term stay in Japan, and I am drawing benefits from both daily.

It’s important though that you remember that even if you fail, you still gain. This is taken straight from Tim Ferriss, but you make your mid-term and long term goals have a sort of contingency in which doing the activity will result in gaining a skill or build value in some way.

For me, there’s a sort of theme about building the image of the Dewa Sanzan or Yamabushi and that’s what I’m working on at the moment. Even if I fail, the region gains, and I can learn skills along the way, such as some that I already have like building a website, or some that I intend to like publishing a book.

What projects could you see yourself doing? Or what are you currently working on?