Navigating to your North Star

A question I’m asked regularly when running my flagship visualisation exercise, North Star, is….

“But what if I don’t know, or I’m not sure, about what I want my North Star to be?”

Great question. And a common challenge.

Let’s start by defining what a North Star is and its role…

North Star is a vision of what your dream future could look like for your home, career, loved ones and hobbies. You can pick any future point you like, but most often I use 10 years.

Sometimes, people get hung up on the potential ambiguity they have around their North Star. They worry that they’re meant to have all the answers or are concerned that this vision could be a final, fixed entity that’ll hamstring them.

But it shouldn’t be. Just like the North Star that led the three wise men, it's meant to be directional. It’s a means of exploring, as of right now, a future you’d be proud to achieve and the themes this conjures up for you.

This forms a jumping off point to get curious.

Because unfortunately, your North Star doesn’t come with a map, or clear instructions about how to get there. That’s where the fun and graft come in. You get to write your own story by carving out your own path.

Yes, it might feel uncertain, and even sometimes unobtainable. But if you can trek through that ambiguity and keep headed in a direction of travel you think you’d be interested in, you can feel confident that you’re doing the right things to create a future you’ll pinch yourself about.

You can even have a few North Stars you like the look of…in that case, your quest is to find ways to test those ideas out and hone which might suit you best.

As you take those baby steps towards your North Star, you’ll learn a lot about yourself. You’ll start to figure out what you want, and, just as importantly, what you don’t. It’s a process of elimination.

Take me. I felt that my North Star saw me running my own business.

My first meaningful foray towards this was a pudding concept. But as soon as I started exploring the idea, I quickly realised that…brace yourself, I don’t have a sweet tooth. And so, I wasn’t inspired to develop recipes.

So, then I pivoted to a savoury concept, but because I’m not as passionate as you need to be about food to start a business in it, I wasn’t motivated to get into the kitchen.

So, what did I learn? I’d like to be an entrepreneur, but food isn’t my calling.

Then I found personal development, and it was like a fire of possibilities ignited inside me.

People often feel embarrassed about their North Star as it seems too lofty and far from reality. Personally, I love this kind of wild imagination. Because remember…

When you shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you end up amongst the stars.

Encouragingly, what I’ve found to be true is that with each step you take towards your North Star, your vision crystalises, and becomes more attainable.

As you “follow the scent” – sniffing your way to using more of your strengths, expressing your values, and living your passions – you’ll figure out more about yourself, what makes you happy, and what doesn’t. And this, in turn, will influence the form of that end goal.

We are not meant to have all the answers in this game of life. And if we wait in a state of analysis paralysis to get them, the journey won’t teach us the lessons needed to progress. You may take wrong turns, but you can value each of these as they help you correct your direction of travel.

The expedition to your North Star might be massive and feel a million lightyears away. But every step towards it is a step closer to working out what you really want and how to make it happen.