Hi Reader,
In a little under 3 weeks we've done 3000+ miles of driving, not including our normal driving while at home.
Across all those miles we followed a trusty GPS to get us to where we were going. But even with that, one missed turn would delay how long it would take us to get to our destination.
If we go back as little as one or two centuries, there was no GPS or even printed maps - traveling was based on understanding the direction you were heading (and/or traveling with someone who's been there before).
This made understanding your direction (North, South, East, West) based on the sun during the day and stars during the night pretty important.
For sailors who couldn't just stop their ship in the middle of the ocean at night, learning how to 'stay true' based on the North Star was vitally important to staying alive.
Effectively by knowing where the North Star was, they could consistently make steering decisions in the dead of night when they couldn't see anything in any direction.
Often times running a business feels at times like you're a boat out at sea and you can't see land. All you can do is stay the course and adjust when you get off course by comparing to your personal North Star.
This week we had our 2026 planning workshop in the The Breakroom (there's a replay if your interested). One of the exercises we walked through was defining your North Star for next year, so that anytime you have a decision (big or small) to make, you can compare to the North Star to know what will get you closer or further from your goals.
How to create a North Star?
- Brainstorm - at this time next year what would you have been excited to have accomplished, make a list (not what someone else told you, not what you're competitors are doing, make it specific to you)
- Talk it out (long form) - have a conversation with someone you trust, explain what you want to accomplish next year in roughly 5-10 minutes - as you're talking, pay attention to what you light up about and what's just filler
- Group it together - what are the 2-3 major themes that encapsulate everything you want to do next year
- Repeat steps 2&3 with multiple people until you start to see repeating themes and simplifying them down to their core elements in how you describe your "definition of success" for next year & how people respond (optional)
- Make it simple - the goal is to fit it into 1 sentence (2 at most) that you can easily refer back to whenever you get presented with a decision or opportunity
How to use a North Star?
When we started 2025 we posted a vision deck to instagram with this North Star:
How did that guide our decisions this year?
- We started the year splitting our client load between photo work and coaching clients - but in Q1 we shut down the photo side of the business, rebranded, & relaunched our website fully as a coaching business
- Our investments were to show up in rooms with creative entrepreneurs - Jo attended Craft & Commerce this summer, where she both learned from top experts in our industry & connected with our kind of people (both peers and ideal clients).
- Throughout the year we expanded our offer ladder to make it possible for creatives to work with us at multiple levels from The Breakroom at as little as $97/month, through Pivoting in Public at around $1k (we still have a few spots available for the Jan cohort), all the way up to 1-on-1 coaching in the low to mid 4 figures depending on the offer (we just updated them for 2026 👀).
A good North Star is both specific & flexible. For example at the beginning of the year neither Jo & I could have predicted we'd be running a membership at the end of the year, but we were clear about what we were trying to achieve & the impact we wanted to have. That made it possible for us to experiment with the "how" throughout the year as we learned more and worked with our clients.
The reason I keep coming back to a North Star is it makes my life easier & decisions quicker, not harder & slower.. if this becomes cumbersome red tape for your business, then it might be a bad tool for you - and that's okay.
If this was helpful and you want to go through the rest of the 2026 planning workshop you can watch the replay by signing up for The Breakroom.
Well be taking next week off for the holidays, so we'll see you next year!
Lyndon
Ps can you do us a huge favor? Can you hit reply with your North Star for next year, or even just "north star" if you plan on working on it and I'll follow up in January to see what you end up with after the holidays?
