How To Find Your North Star

Hello beautiful humans,

My name is Darius and I am so excited that you and I get this type of time together.

You might be used to hearing my meditations,

Perhaps on Insight Timer,

You might be used to reading my writing,

Perhaps on places like Substack,

And this is a bit different.

This is a video lesson,

Video workshop.

It's going to give us a chance to go a little deeper and perhaps make it a little bit more dynamic.

Today,

I want to share with you a practice,

A framework and a practice that has truly made such a massive impact in my life.

Truly,

Truly,

Truly.

It's changed my life.

It's allowed me to focus.

It's allowed me to take aligned steps towards my dreams,

Towards my goals,

Towards my creativity and art.

Okay,

And the best way I know how to do this is by showing you.

So,

I'm going to hit this button and this button.

I'm going to go,

Look at this,

A fresh new canvas.

Yes,

Indeed.

So,

Our topic today is how to find your North Star.

Before we go into that,

Let me just do a little demonstration.

This radiant smiley fella is going to play the role of you right over here,

And maybe possibly you can relate to this.

Let me know.

Let me know.

So,

You're over here.

I have a feeling there's a part of you that has some sort of goal,

Some sort of creative goal.

Don't get caught up in this like,

I'm not an artist.

I'm not a creator.

Guess what you are.

Even that story you've been telling yourself,

I'm not creative.

That's a story.

And what are stories?

They're creations.

So,

You are unconsciously creating a story that you are not a creator.

And I want to invite you into the possibility that everything is a creation.

Everything.

So,

People are over here.

They want,

You're over here.

You want to get over here and I really want to make a meditation,

My first meditation.

I really want to write.

I really want to launch a retreat.

I really want to whatever,

Whatever the creative project is.

Okay,

Whatever,

No matter how small or big,

There's something I'm going to make a,

You know,

Assumption that there's some creative energy that wants to come through you.

And I'm going to make another assumption that it's not new.

It's probably been there for a while and maybe you've taken a couple of steps towards this thing and maybe not.

What I do know from working with many people in this journey is sometimes these special dates come up.

January 1st,

The first of spring,

The first day of school,

Your birthday,

And you become aware that,

Whoa,

There's a whole new 65,

365 days.

Yes.

And then you get this energy and you say,

This is going to be the year I'm going to do the thing.

This is going to be the year and you get really excited and god bless your excitement.

Truly,

I love that excitement.

And maybe you can relate to this,

That fresh new 365 and you are so excited January 1st,

January 2nd,

You take a step forward,

Right?

And then what happens?

Oh,

This thing's happening in my inbox.

This thing's happening on Instagram.

This politician said this.

This family member said this.

The weather did this.

My,

You know,

Toilet broke here and the energy dissipates,

Dissipates,

Dissipates,

Dissipates.

And instead of taking steps forward here,

We find ourselves potentially possibly in the exact same place 365 days from there.

Maybe you can relate to this phenomenon that the older I get,

The longer the days feel and the faster the years become.

They fly,

They fly,

They fly.

And so the name of the game becomes protecting your creative energy.

I call these guardrails.

How do we create structure so that our creative energy can actually take a line steps forward towards these dreams,

These beautiful creative dreams?

Okay.

And one of the best methods I know how to do this is focus and clarity.

And the best way I've discovered to get focus and clarity is called North Star Garden Bed.

Okay.

It's a framework and I'm going to show you how it works right now.

Oops,

Wrong way.

Oops.

No.

Great.

All right.

Amazing.

It's already made for me.

Look at that.

So North Star up here.

Okay.

This is your North Star.

Don't mind my wonky boxes.

I am perfectly imperfect and I love it.

North Star is up here and North Star is a star and North Star is a sun.

It nurtures,

It nourishes these garden beds.

What are garden beds?

Garden beds are three focused areas that we want to grow and develop new vegetables,

New fruits,

New flowers,

New creations.

There's themes in them.

I'm going to get to that in a moment.

But for now,

I want you to imagine you are in the desert.

It's dark.

You got spun around and you got lost.

A North Star will be so valuable because when you're lost,

You're like,

I don't know to go this way.

Do I go that way?

You look at the North Star and the North Star definitively tells you we're going that way.

You don't waste energy.

You don't lose hope.

And you take steps towards where you want to be.

That's what a North Star is.

Okay.

I'm going to give you some guidance in terms of how to pick your North Star.

This has transformed my life.

This is at the heart of what I teach in my coaching program.

So I've workshopped it.

I've shared it with groups.

It's so,

So powerful.

Because we can be all over the place.

What I know about people that seem to find me is one,

They're creative.

So they have lots of ideas and that's a blessing and can be overwhelming.

Two,

They have giant hearts.

It's a blessing and it can be overwhelming because they feel so much.

And three,

They're spiritually oriented and minded.

And that could be a blessing because they have access to energy outside of the human experience and it can be overwhelming because there's just so much energy.

So this is a system to take that energy,

All those blessings,

And pour them intentionally into future you.

Okay.

So let me explain the three boxes,

The three garden beds that we're growing and developing and tell you that I'm going to dive deeper into each one of these in future videos.

But for now,

Because we're focusing on North Star,

Let me just give you high level.

Box number one is one creative project that we are nurturing and growing and developing.

Not 10 creative projects.

That's usually where people start.

But one creative,

One really clear.

I'm going to launch my first five meditations on Insight Timer.

So clear.

So,

So clear,

Right?

I'm going to write my first 10 posts on Substack.

So,

So clear.

I'm going to launch my first retreat.

So clear.

One creative project.

And this is the place where people get panicked because they're like,

One Darius?

I have 25 things I want to do.

And then I very gently,

Very lovingly tell them,

How's that going?

How's that going?

The 25 projects all at once.

And then they go,

Yeah,

Not so great.

And I said,

What if we took a sabbatical,

A little break and we focused on one,

Just one for 12 weeks and see what happens.

Okay.

Number two,

A key relationship,

A key relationship that will play a major role in you having a breakthrough year.

Now that could be internal relationship with your inner creator,

Your inner artist,

Your inner child,

Your heart,

Your whatever.

It could be an external relationship with mentors,

With other creators,

With other writers.

There's lots of different options,

But it's a missing piece that's going to help you break through.

And the third garden bed I call future self garden bed.

And I'll guide you through a process where we write it in the form of an I am affirmation.

Okay.

I've got more to say on that,

But just wanted to lay that high level foundation.

So now D,

How do we find our North star?

How do we find our North star?

Great question.

So first thing I want to say is this isn't a magic trick.

It's a process.

It takes time and it actually requires failure.

It requires you to play and test and try,

Go out into the world and come back and be like,

That's not it.

That wasn't actually helpful.

That was too ambiguous.

That was not actually aligned with future self.

So we try,

We play.

When I do this in a 12 week container,

It takes like three to four weeks of like getting better and better and better and refined and refined until we lock it in.

I'll give you a few examples.

Actually,

Before I give you examples,

Here's a little cheat code I found to finding your North star.

It's like you fill in the blank.

Okay.

The question is,

I believe blank is a key ingredient to help me have a breakthrough year.

I believe blank is a key ingredient,

Key piece,

Key element that's missing that if I added would help me have a breakthrough year.

Okay.

Here's some examples.

Courage,

Joy,

Perfectly imperfect,

Collaboration,

Faith,

Profit.

So many options,

But here's what I've learned over the course of several years of doing this with myself and with students.

Often people start with too much poetry.

It's not poetry.

It's not public facing.

It's just for you.

Often people start with too much ambiguity.

It doesn't help when it's too ambiguous.

If I told you to go that way ish,

When you're lost in the desert,

You'd be like,

What?

That's not helpful.

And so another key factor is when you imagine yourself in the next few weeks,

In the next few months,

In the next year,

Trying to make creative decisions with this one missing thing,

Guide you definitively left,

Right.

Right.

If courage was your North star and an opportunity came up and you're like,

Oh man,

I said,

North star is courage.

I got to go this way.

If joy was your North star and you're trying to make a decision about,

Should I say yes to this project,

This collaboration,

This,

Whatever it is,

Joy has this way is clear,

Right?

Whichever way it is.

And so what's the one ingredient that's going to help me have a breakthrough.

Will this actually help me make decisions through the year and then space and time to refine,

Go into the real world,

Sleep on it,

Walk on it,

Dream on it,

Journal on it,

Get input and information and then refine,

Refine,

Refine,

Usually a couple of weeks in and then lock it in.

And then I have these printed out,

You know,

I have,

I look at them,

Review them.

One of the mistakes people make with North stars,

It's December and they're so excited.

Here's my North star.

Here's my theme for this new year.

And then they never look at it again.

A proper North star will activate and trigger you when you're veering off course.

That's the goal.

So don't give up on it.

If you need to adapt it,

Adapt it.

But this is a key factor to help give you that focus and clarity you need to actually take aligned steps towards your future self,

Your thriving creator self,

Your dream self.

Okay.

So let's come on back.

That was fun.

I love this topic so much and I wish we had three more hours to dive into it.

I wish each one of you was here and could throw your hands up and ask me questions because that's when it gets real juicy.

And so ask me questions if you can try it out,

Report back,

Let me know how it goes.

Let me know if you get stuck.

I really believe in this system and I really believe our souls chose to come to this planet and this body in this time to express,

To experience,

To explore.

And creativity is a fundamental part of that.

So thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening.

My name is Darius and I will see you next time.