Checking In With My North Star
It’s Labor Day. I normally have a hard time taking a full day off, but today feels a little different. With a hurricane potentially affecting Hawaiʻi, particularly Kauaʻi, I decided to keep the morning light: do a little work, go to yoga, and give myself some time to think. With the fourth quarter almost here, I have been reflecting on a few questions:
What have I accomplished so far this year?
What do I want to accomplish next year?
And, maybe most importantly, are the things I am spending my time and energy on still aligned with my North Star?
My North Star:
Build a strong body, a peaceful mind, meaningful work, and a loving life, with enough freedom to spend my time helping others and being with the people I love.
About three months ago, I was feeling pretty lost.
Before my current position, I was good about setting goals, making a plan, and executing against it. My current role has challenged me in a different way. There are a lot of moving pieces, the work itself, managing relationships, supporting people, responding to constant needs, and trying to protect my own mental health along the way.
Somewhere in all of that, I realized I had stopped making enough time to think about where I was going.
A Conversation That Stayed With Me
I am fortunate that my work gives me the opportunity to meet some incredibly accomplished and inspiring people. A while back, I had lunch with a donor who I admire. She is respected, disciplined, successful, and someone I consider a visionary.
I asked her a simple question: “How did you become successful?”
She told me that from a young age, she knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish both financially and professionally. She also shared something that stuck with me: you have to review your goals regularly and keep your eye on the prize. Our conversation went much deeper than that, but what stayed with me most was the realization that I had not been giving myself enough time to reflect.
Most of my days are spent responding to other people.
Work. Family. Friends. Responsibilities. Problems that need to be solved.
I am naturally someone who wants to help, and I often put other people ahead of myself.
After that conversation, I told myself something I needed to hear:
One of the most important people I need to take care of is me.
Not from a place of selfishness. Quite the opposite.
If I prioritize my sleep, eat well, move my body, protect my mental health, and create space to think, I can show up much better for everyone around me.
You cannot continually pour from an empty well.
Thinking Big and Working Backward
So now, as I look at what I have accomplished thus far in 2026 and the months I have left, I am asking myself a different question:
What kind of life am I actually trying to build?
Instead of creating a long list of disconnected goals, I want everything I work toward to connect to something bigger. I need to think about the life I want five and ten years from now—and then work backward.
What needs to happen over the next five years?
What needs to happen next year?
And, ultimately, what can I do over the next three months that moves me a little closer?
Thinking this way helps the bigger vision inform the way I show up today.
My Three Pillars
As I have been reflecting, I keep coming back to three areas of my life that I want to intentionally build.
Physical Health
How I care for and move my body today so I can become a strong, healthy, capable version of myself for my future.
I don't simply want to exercise to look a certain way. I want strength, energy, mobility, and health that allow me to fully experience my life for decades to come.Mental Health
How I show up for myself so I can show up well for everyone else.
That means creating boundaries, making room for rest, protecting my peace, reflecting more often, and recognizing that constantly being available to everyone else does not necessarily make me more effective. Sometimes the most productive thing I can do is create enough quiet to hear myself think.Financial Health
How I earn, save, invest, and eventually create enough financial freedom to support the life I want to live.
I want meaningful work, but I also want freedom, the ability to spend time with people I love, volunteer, stay active, travel, help others, and eventually choose work based more on purpose than necessity.
Becoming More Intentional
One of the greatest gifts of my job is getting to spend time with people who have built extraordinary careers and lives. What inspires me about many of them is their discipline.
They are intentional about their time. They understand what they are working toward. And they have spent years making decisions that slowly moved them in that direction.
When I think about how I want to show up in the world, that is what I want for myself too.
I want to be disciplined.
I want to be thoughtful about where my time goes.
I want to build a life I am proud of.
And I want to use whatever success I create to help other people reach their own dreams.
I don't have everything mapped out yet.
But maybe that is the point of taking time to reflect.
You don't have to know every step.
You start with knowing which direction you want to go and keep checking that your choices are still pointing you toward your North Star.
As we head toward the final few months of the year, I would love to know:
How do you plan for the year ahead? What are you working toward—and what is your North Star?