7 Essential Steps to Getting In-Tune with Your Star Player
If you’re familiar with the great comedian Katt Williams then it’s likely you’ve heard his highly acclaimed and very real references to the importance of “being in tune with your star player”. While Katt makes some pretty terrible life decisions, he's still a wise guy who is positioned to demonstrate the necessity of grounding oneself to combat the daily negativity we all find ourselves up against (termed: haters). If you haven't seen it stop and click here.
Regardless of whether you seek to work (read: flourish) in music, entrepreneurship, fitness, food service, academia, show business, or comedy, you should always have a desire to be your best self. Getting in-tune with your star player, as Williams puts it, is a necessary life-long process that has no correct way of being done, but is imperative for growing into the best and most confident version of oneself. The following foundational steps are fool-proof for jumpstarting or boosting your progress towards your best self.
1. Resist the pressure to be validated by social media
Social media is both the best and worst thing that has happened to our society. While on one hand it has positioned us to be able to expand our impacts, illuminate incidents of police brutality and the effects of the abuse of power and privilege, and build community in spaces we otherwise would not have had access, it has also has established unrealistic standards that many of us hold ourselves to.
We're constantly exposing ourselves to people who have more successful careers than us, travel more than us, have better bodies than us and seem to be holistically more happy than us. What many fail to account for is the fact that we're only seeing each other's highlights. In addition, many people use social media to gauge their happiness, their confidence, and in many cases their self-worth. Doing so only sets one up for failure.. Google the Bow Wow Challenge if you don't believe me.
To get in-tune with your star player, it's important to evaluate the value being added to your life by social media. "Go Hollywood" and stay off of it for a while and see how you feel.
Do you only know about people's lives because of social media?
Do you only feel like you're successful if people are commenting "congratulations" on your posts?
Does this change whether or not you're actually successful and feel successful?
2. Start saying yes to the things you want to do and no to everything else.
Why do we often say yes when we actually mean no?
This concept is best explained in Sarah Knight's Ted Talk, "The Art of Not Giving a F**k"
We're often pressured to make decisions to do things based upon whether or not we feel we should do it versus whether or not we actually want to do it. When it comes to things like going to social events, going to church, and engaging with things we're not excited to engage with, we should first ask ourselves if this is something we want to do. If the answer is no, simply don't. There are only so many hours in the day, thus it’s just all around better to do what you want or what we feel we'll gain the most value from .
3. Don’t be afraid to be selective about who you allow around you.
People in your life should only be enhancing you and challenging you to be better. We all have enough negativity not to need additional negativity beyond what we can't control. It is not rude, bourgeois or mean to vet who you spend your time with. There's nothing wrong with not calling or texting people back. Protecting yourself should not mean that you're harming someone else and one must think about a person's intentions if they feel that it is.
Get in-tune with your star player by exercising some control over where your energy goes and the type of energy around you. Be selective about who we share our space and thoughts with. All energy matters.
4. Challenge yourself to learn about other cultures.
The human experience is 100% cultural. Everything you know and think you know is because of where you live, what you’ve been expose to, and what you believe. The best way to truly understand something you think you believe is to have those beliefs challenged. This is best done when you try to see it from someone else’s perspective.
You can't beat exposure, thus you can only get in-tune with your star player when you expose yourself to something new. Don't forget to do so respectfully :-)
5. Focus on being authentic.
Be yourself. Be yourself. Be. Yourself.
You only become your best self when you commit to being yourself.
People have different personalities for a reason. When you spend too much time trying to be the way you think you should or like everyone around you, you forget to validate your unique strengths and characteristics and place yourself at risk of losing them. Your star player is constantly being refined and can only become fully developed when enough practice and definition of your star player happens. Be authentic.
6. Become unapologetic about something (read: everything) you believe in.
What are you most passionate about? What can you not let people discuss without inputting your opinion? Being unapologetic about your beliefs and passion will not only deepen your understanding of those beliefs, but will also develop you into an expert on negotiating your passion in relation to others. In other words, you’ll become more emotionally intelligent and closer to your best self through the process of not apologizing for your beliefs and authentic self. Star Players only apologize when they’re actually wrong.
7. Trust the process.
Say yes to more things. Say yes to more things you wouldn’t typically say yes to. Overtime you will see tremendous growth. As growth occurs you will come to understand yourself and your purpose more.
Be okay with not necessarily understanding the direction in which your life is going. Just be sure that you, in the words of Crissle West of the Read podast " make choices that will lead you to the life you want to live".
Your best and future self will thank you.