Melrose Lady Raiders Volleyball: What Is Your North Star?

The "North Star" is a mental model, guiding force to direct your journey. It isn't a goal. MVB isn't headed to the North Star.

For example:

Winning a league title is a goal not a guiding force. Applying relentless focus, working "the right way, every day" could be.

What North Star guides 'the blog'? “Do the work of writing that helps committed players and coaches think, prepare, and perform better.” (It seldom hits that aspirational mark.)

Sometimes AI outperforms. AI doesn't replace the process, it amplifies and enhances it.

Simple idea:
A North Star is a single, fixed reference point that guides direction when conditions are noisy, confusing, or emotional.

Sailors didn’t steer to the North Star; they steered by it. That distinction matters.

1. What the North Star is (and what it isn’t)

✅ What it is

A stable orienting principle
A decision filter
A source of directional consistency
A reminder of who you are when pressure rises

❌ What it is not

Not a goal (“win the league”)
Not a tactic (“run this offense”)
Not a metric (“raise VERT 6 inches”)

Goals and metrics change.
The North Star does not.

2. Why the North Star works (the psychology)

Under pressure, humans:

narrow attention
revert to habits
seek certainty
overreact to short-term outcomes

The North Star counters this by:

reducing cognitive load (“What matters right now?”)
preventing drift when emotions take over
anchoring identity, not mood

Think of it as a cognitive gyroscope.

Your North Star allows you to refocus on your values. It isn't your values.

3. North Star vs. Goals vs. Values

Concept	Purpose	Time Horizon
Goals	What you want	Short / Medium
Values	What you believe	Long
North Star	How you decide	Always

A powerful North Star sits between values and action.

4. North Star as a decision-making technique

Use the North Star as a binary filter:

Does this move me closer to or farther from who we are trying to be?

That question is more important than:

“Will it work?”
“Will we look good?”
“Will it make people happy?”

Great leaders use the North Star to say no more than yes.

Dr. Fergus Connolly explains that everything at practice, every activity, drill, or every scrimmage should impact winning.

5. Examples across domains

Sports (Volleyball / Basketball)

“Compete every possession.”
“We play fast, unselfish, and fearless.”
“Be the best teammate on the floor.”

When things go sideways:

bad calls
missed serves
losing streaks

…the North Star pulls behavior back to center.

Coaching

“Teach the player, not the play.”
“Preparation over prediction.”

Business

Amazon: “Customer obsession.”
Netflix: “Freedom and responsibility.”
Spanx: "Obsess the product."

These are more than slogans. They are behavior filters.

Personal leadership

“Choose growth over comfort.”
“Do the hard right over the easy wrong.”

Let your character and values shine when darkness is an alternative.

6. The North Star during stress and failure

This is where the model shines.

When:

the scoreboard is ugly
emotions are loud
confidence is wobbling

The North Star does not argue with facts — it organizes response.

“We may be losing, but are we still doing what we said matters?”

If yes → stay the course.
If no → course-correct behavior, not identity.

Example: our middle school girls' team had just been 'rocked' without response. The head coach asked me to say a few words. "You cannot allow people to push you around without responding. How you play basketball reflects how you live." Use the North Star to redirect behaviors.

7. One North Star beats five priorities

Teams fail when:

everything is important
messages change weekly
values compete with each other

A good test:

If a freshman can’t explain our North Star in one sentence, we don’t have one.

Clarity beats sophistication.

Actions define us. Principles guide us.

8. How to create a strong North Star (practical steps)

Step 1: Name the moment of truth

Ask:

When pressure hits, what behavior must never change?

Step 2: Strip it to action

Avoid abstractions.

❌ “Excellence”
✅ “Relentless effort and trust”

Step 3: Stress-test it

Does it help us decide when tired?
Does it guide behavior when losing?
Does it apply to stars and role players?

Step 4: Rehearse it

The North Star must be:

spoken often
shown on film
tied to feedback

Choices that make the team stronger define you.

9. North Star + Checklist = Power

Your instinct to pair this with checklists is spot on.

North Star = direction
Checklist = execution

Without a North Star, checklists become busywork.
Without checklists, the North Star becomes a poster.

10. Bottom line

The North Star doesn’t tell you exactly what to do.
It keeps you from doing the wrong things when it would be easiest to do them.

That’s leadership.
That’s coaching.

Assignment: as an individual and as a team, propose and follow your North Star. Choose aspirational, meaningful to you, and trackable. Your North Star literally filters bad options (e.g. academic laziness, bullying, violating team rules). “Your North Star keeps your behavior aligned with your values, even when it’s hard.”

Could two words define the MVB North Star? "Team volleyball"

Lagniappe. (via Professor Adam Grant)

adamgrant

It's time to remove laptops from classrooms.24 experiments: Students learn more and get better grades after taking notes by hand than typing. It's not just because they're less distracted - writing enables deeper processing and more images.The pen is mightier than the keyboard.