How to find your North Star

💫 In my last webinar, I walk through the concept of the North Star with the team from the tech scale-up CHOCO. CHOCO IS THE FOOD INDUSTRY'S #1 ORDERING PLATFORM 🍫 www.choco.com They are on a mission to enable food to move around the planet transparently, sustainably, and without waste. By 2030. Starting out, the platform connects restaurants and suppliers, improving the order process to save time, money, and food.

Why a North Star?

Finding your North Star helps you live with purpose and have a career with value. It gives you a compass point to keep walking in the right direction. The career path will still be challenging. Of course, we all have our ups and downs. But when you’re living and working with purpose, it’s much easier to stay on track and weather the storms that come your way. Most people, in my experience, don’t take the time to be still, to let go of the noise around them and let come to them what fuels them, what guides them, and what they were put on this planet to achieve.

Life has a way of keeping us distracted. Day after day and week after week, many people run after what is urgent without much thought of what brings value. Value to their existence and to the existence of others. I believe that in this era of turbulence, it is our uttermost responsibility to stop and reflect. To become still and reflect what really matters for us, our close ones, for society, and a future economy of well-being. Every day we make choices. We have the opportunity to thrive and build a life that we love and value. Your “North Star” — a guiding light that can help you find meaning and value.

How to find your North Star

There is a set of questions that help to discover your North Star.

1. What do you value?

Develop a list of attributes that you believe identify who you are and what your priorities are. The list can be as long as you need.

Once your list is complete, see if you can narrow your values down to around five or six of the most important values. Finally, see if you can choose the one value that is most important to you.

Here is an example from one of my mentees:

Hard-working | Problem-Solving | Caring | Decision-maker | Compassionate | Spiritual | Analytical | Good-spirited | reliable | energising | integrity

2. What do you love?

What gets you inspired and in tune with yourself? What are the causes and beliefs that give you a warm feeling in your chest, that get you out of bed in the morning, fired-up and ready to go?

I work with my mentees to discover how to get their passions and causes more integrated into their daily work.

It can be organising talks about mental health, diversity or tech-for-good. Whatever it is that you are passionate about, do not just simply externalise it from your career but get it into your daily job.

So how about your passion? How could you integrate it into your daily job?

3. What gives your energy?

Reflecting about what gives and takes energy is another great way to map your North Star.

As one of my podcast guests says:

Follow what gives you energy - that is where the magic happens

Elinor Samuelsson - Founder of BrightAct

4. What do you leave?

What is it that you would like to leave behind? Visualise what people would say at your funeral. What would you like to them to mention about your life?

This is not necessarily connected to WHAT accomplishments you assembled but rather to HOW you lived your life. How were you in your day-to-day activities?

2. What can you do?

Mapping your hard and soft-skills, provides a great reality check in light of the questions before.

What type of skills - technical (ie problem-solving, data analysis, marketing etc.), interpersonal (communication, listening, collaboration) and emotional (regulating emotions, leading yourself, controlling reactions) do you have or need to develop to keep wandering beneath your North Star?

Inspired? Drop me a message! 🍍 www.brain-fruits.net