Creating Your 2022 North Star

Adam Grant’s brilliant NYTimes article uses the term languishing to describe what many of us have been feeling during the second pandemic year of 2021. While there were many beautiful connections last year, there were also many times when I felt joyless and aimless and it felt comforting to think of a collective languishing.

As we move into 2022, even with the new strains, we can take advantage of the quirk of human calendars and get a fresh start. We’re all familiar with New Year’s Resolutions and how they typically end in a dumpster fire by the end of January. Yet without dreaming and wishing for something different, we end up stuck in default modes, repeating old patterns, and continuing to tread the well-worn grooves of our lives.

This article outlines a leadership framework revolving around your one word or one phrase intention to define your 2022 north star. I’ll also share mine as an example. If you want additional support to create yours, my colleague Jim Herman and I are leading a 6-week group program that begins on January 18.

Last year, I wrote about Creating Your 2021 North Star and reflected on A Ritual for Closing the Year. My word for the year was whitespace —in design, the negative space between the content. I needed to slow down and pay attention to the restful space in-between the to-do list and packed calendars. I gave myself permission to read, sketch, surf, and write. I was proud to complete a book that kept to that theme, Make Space to Lead.

Setting your North Star is not establishing rigid goals that you must accomplish by the end of the year. It’s not a typical New Year’s resolution to lose 10 pounds, find your life partner, run your first 5K or get that promotion at work. These are all outcomes. For successful, driven people, you’ll reach these outputs at some point in time. What’s important is to ask yourself if these are the internally-driven outputs you truly want. Or are they externally-driven outputs, deemed important by your parents, your successful friends, or society — the “shoulds”?

A North Star is a directional setting that guides you to the right behaviors and choices to achieve focus, fulfillment, and success through the year. It can involve outcomes and goals, yet the key is to hold these lightly. Instead, dream about would be amazing and fun to do 2022. How might you give yourself permission to desire big things. We’ll do all we can to reach it, and if it doesn’t happen, it’s OK. Try to remain unattached to the outcome, even though that feels so impossibly hard. A North Star is directional and not prescriptive.

Looking forward into 2022, I offer up a two-part strategy to set your North Star.

Part 1: One Word or One Phase Intention

When working at Facebook, one trait that was consistent among the strongest designers was something we called intentionality. Like all the best concepts, it is both a paradox and a mix of mind and heart.

The digital products we designed all existed to serve a purpose and solve problems for some group of people. A designer may work on a brand new concept for a product (e.g. Facebook Dating), a feature to add to an existing product (e.g. the ability to Save videos), or a small UI element such as navigation or call-to-action buttons. Having intentionality means that the designer could see the purpose and why behind the design solution, regardless of the size of the problem. The designer knows how the solution will make people feel when they’re using it. Perhaps hopeful and excited to explore dating matches. Or relief to be able to save a video to watch later. Or accomplished when they were able to easily check out and buy their item. After the solution is executed, there is self-awareness to evaluate if the design hit its intention. Part of the creative process is trying many different things, many of which will fail. Yet they’re all part of the process. In evaluating product designers, intentionality refers to having the foresight to know what feelings and outcome you want to achieve with the product, and the self-awareness to discern if you hit it or not.

Creating an intention for 2022 helps to focus attention on what YOU need more of. What would you like to be the theme of your year and the why behind it. It’s not a specific as a goal. It’s a feeling, an emotion, and energy and foundation upon which you can build your goals.

As you think about what your one word or phrase may be for 2022, consider these questions:

What do you need more of in 2022?
Who do you want to be?
Is there something you want to focus on that you’d forget about if you didn’t call it out?

As part of the divergent, exploratory process of design thinking, you could write down a list of 50+ words that appeal to you. Go as broad as possible. Afterwords, circle the ones that continue to resonate the most. Think about these words for a couple days and perhaps one or two will bubble up.

Part 2: Projects, People, Community

The leadership model for creating this North Star is divided into four parts. It starts with me in the middle, because leadership starts with me. This leadership is represented by your intention for 2022.

The three points of the star show aspects of leadership both at work and at home, across projects, people, and community or organization.

Projects is the work that you produce on your own. It’s the craft of the things that you create, whether it’s sketches, designs, project plans, spreadsheets, slide decks, or emails. We all create things even if we don’t often think of ourselves as creators and makers. What projects are important to you in 2022, either at work and at home?

People refers to the relationships that you care about the most. This is a combination of relationships that you’ve chosen, and the ones that you have to work with in your current life. And it can often be the same tricky people! In your professional life, who are the people that are important to you? There’s some that may immediately come to mind — your boss, the team of people you manage, partners that you have to work with, or many other co-collaborators. Which of these people bring you joy and energy? And if some of these key relationships might be considered difficult people, what is your role in improving that relationship? When setting your 2022 north star, think about the 3 to 5 people who are important to you. How do you want the relationships with these people to be in 2022, and what can you do to help reach that outcome?

The last part of the leadership star is community. This is the broadest arc of the system that we live in. For many people working in corporate, the community may be the company you work for. It could be company-wide, or it could be for your organization or team within the company. Community could also be an organization you volunteer for. Community may also be a group of people that you want to serve, be it the neighbors on your block, your extended family, for a book club that you run. For 2022, is there a community that you want to focus on for your leadership? How do you want to shift the shape of that community this year?

I’ve outlined the four parts of the leadership north star. Leadership starts within with the one word intention to found you in the middle. Your leadership grows as you interact with the projects, people, and community around you.

As an example, I’m sharing what mine looks like for 2022.

My 2022 North Star

The epitome of satisfaction after a long hike. Photo by Toben Dilworth

My “one word” intention for 2021 is satisfied, to be sung out loud 🎵 I will always be satisfied . 🎵 to the Hamilton song. It layers upon the whitespace of 2021 and reminds me to keep my contentment top of mind. At the same time, satisfied has the association of a sense of accomplishment, a job well done. Brené Brown in her latest work of wonder, Atlas of the Heart asks us to ponder:

If we’re not satisfied with our life as a whole, does this mean we need to go get and do all the stuff that will make us satisfied so we can be content, or does this mean we stop taking for granted what we have so we can experience real contentment and enoughness?

Projects

Attend personal retreats, including a 2-day Spirit Quest in the wilderness
Research, outline, and start writing my second book that focuses on stories of Asian women in tech
Continue to serve my 1–1 clients and creating new ones
Speak in-person at conferences
Surf more and read more

People

Loving my tween and teen girls while supporting their emotional journey towards adulthood
Having fun with my leadership partners-in-crime
Bring my girls to visit family in Bangkok this summer, even if it means quarantining for 2 weeks

Community

I’ve joined a new mastermind of entrepreneurs/writers that I’m very excited to be a part of.
Continue supporting the warm, transformational Positive Intelligence team
Supporting my local San Francisco women in tech in some way

Bottom-Line

This north star model is a framework that I use with my clients, and that I reapply for myself each year. I hope that it proves useful for you. If you would like additional support in creating your 2022 leadership north star, my colleague Jim Herman and I are leading a 6-week group program that begins on January 18. And I eagerly embrace the hope for a sense of satisfaction throughout 2022.