“I need to lock in and stop getting distracted.”

I hear this from a lot of my friends.

To a person with a 9-5 job, I seem like someone who’s just side questing through life.

Every month I’ve got a different hobby (might try juggling next).

Every week I’m just hanging out with friends.

Every day I’m just chasing whatever distraction I have (instead of doing the admin work I should do).

But sometimes, I think the side quests are my main quest.

Let me explain…

My life north star metric

In my course, I teach about using your values to guide you towards 1 life north star metric.

This is basically just the 1 measurement you live your life by, like:

• Number of days you genuinely look forward to

• Number of times you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe

• Number of stories collected (a student favourite from a few cohorts ago)

• Number of sunsets savoured

• Number of people positively impacted (this is mine)

So whenever I feel like I’m not quite content in life,

I revisit my life north star metric and ask myself:

“Is what I’m doing right now a reflection of these values?”

Example: my day today

Here’s what I used to think my perfectly productive day should be:

1. Wake up at 5am

2. Meditate

3. Go for a run

4. Deep work (writing, making videos, moving my business forward)

5. Eat

6. Read

7. Sleep

Here’s how my day actually went:

1. Woke up at 8am for a meeting (if no meeting, I wake up at like 10am lol)

2. Went to the library to borrow their sewing machine to make meditation cushions

3. Shared my progress to the fabric store owners I got the fabric from (they were proud of me 🥰)

4. Called with my friend while walking outside and he said I gave him clarity with his business

5. Felt so motivated after the call that I did some admin work

6. Gym with audiobook (reading Burnout recommended by someone who reads my newsletter and recommended it hehe)

7. Watching the sunset with my partner

8. Called with this cool influencer I randomly DM’d and she actually replied to me 🥺 she said I was inspiring 😭🫶

9. Writing this newsletter a few hours before it’s supposed to be sent out (I’ve accepted my procrastinator tendencies at this point)

If I showed this to my past self, I would’ve 100% said “this is just a day of side quests.”

But which day feels like a better reflection of my life north star metric to positively impact other people?

Here’s what I think now…

What are you working so hard for?

I think sometimes I get lost in the work.

I tell myself I need to keep working hard to earn a life I enjoy.

That I have to suffer through admin work and “lock in” alone to force myself to do work.

But when I actually reflect back on my last few weeks and months,

The things I remember are mainly the side quests:

• Board games with friends

• Learning to sew

• Meeting cool new inspiring people

• Finding courage to compliment a stranger’s running shoes in the elevator

I don’t even realize I’m living my dream life because I’m so busy trying to “be productive…”

(Hence why it’s so important to pause and reflect, which is why I have regular reflections and why I teach others to do the same.)

And that’s why I wanted to rebrand

Remember my Life North Star Metric:

Positively impacting as many people as I can.

Last week, I had something transformative happen to me.

Well, it wasn’t really me. It was my friend’s student.

Her student landed a $2k brand deal and is now working towards her dreams.

All because I gave a few words of advice + encouragement for my friend to launch her course, which changed her student’s life.

I know I can only reach so many people as an individual.

But if I empower other people to inspire even more people, it really amplifies my impact.

So even if you’re not super interested in the business side of things, I hope you’ll stick around…

Because it’ll be a fun journey + I hope you can still learn a lot 🫶 

Til next time,

Jennifer

P.S. starting a business is truly the final boss of personal development bc I had to learn how to face sooooo many of my limiting beliefs and fears bc of it