Navigating by the Stars

A few weeks ago I was standing in the navigation tower of the USS Midway in San Diego, with the Pacific Ocean stretching endlessly beyond the horizon. I found myself wondering how sailors ever found their way before GPS. How did they navigate vast oceans when there was no land in sight?

The answer surprised me.

For centuries, sailors looked to the stars.

Long before satellites and navigation systems, they learned to identify fixed points in the night sky. Those stars didn’t tell them everything about the journey ahead, but they gave them enough information to know where they were and which direction to travel.

As I stood there, I realised how relevant that lesson feels today.

Many of us are navigating our own uncharted waters.

• A career transition.
• An empty nest.
• A move to a new country.
• A relationship beginning or ending.
• A growing sense that life is asking something different of us.

During these seasons, our instinct is often to search for certainty. We want a detailed map. A guaranteed route. Clear answers about what comes next.

Yet transitions rarely work that way.

As transition expert William Bridges reminds us, change and transition are not the same thing. Change happens around us. Transition happens within us.

And it is often in that uncertain middle space — where the old chapter has ended but the new one has not yet fully emerged — that we feel most lost.

I’ve experienced this myself.

As a coach, wife, mother, and expatriate living far from where I grew up, I’ve learned that some of life’s most significant transitions cannot be solved by planning alone. They require something deeper.

They require an internal compass.

In my coaching conversations, I often meet people searching for answers about the future. Yet the breakthrough rarely comes from predicting exactly what lies ahead.

Instead, it comes from reconnecting with the things that remain constant.

Our values.

Our innate talents.

Our sense of purpose.

 

These become the stars by which we navigate.

The destination may still be unclear, but we are no longer drifting.

Perhaps that’s the invitation for all of us.

When life feels uncertain, instead of asking, “How do I control the journey?” we might ask:

“What are the stars I navigate by?”

• What remains true, even when circumstances change?
• What strengths have carried you through previous storms?
• What values anchor you when the horizon disappears?

The stars don’t remove the darkness.

They don’t shorten the journey.

But they help us find our direction within it.

And sometimes, that is enough.

 

I’m Sarah Cretegny, an Accredited Transitions Coach. I help individuals, groups and teams to navigate real life transitions without losing themselves.

I’m particularly effective when time is limited and the stakes are high. I draw on evidence-based coaching approaches, strengths expertise, and my lived experience of balancing leadership, family life, and international living. I’m deeply passionate about partnering with people to coach their wild, because the world needs more radically authentic leaders now more than ever.

I am based in Lausanne, Switzerland and coach virtually globally. Find my links: https://linktr.ee/discover.your.wild