Man, sometimes weeks just hit you like a truck, right? You blink, and suddenly it’s Friday, and you’re wondering where all that time went. I’ve been there, countless times. Just letting the days roll into one another, not really feeling like I had a handle on anything. My head would be swimming with all the stuff I thought I had to do, all the things that might pop up, and honestly, it just led to a whole lot of dread and very little actual doing.
I remember one Monday morning, scrolling through some feed, and I saw a headline like, “Darkstar Virgo Weekly Horoscope: What to expect this week!” And it just hit me. Not because I believe in horoscopes or anything, but because it made me stop and think: what do I expect this week? What do I want to happen? And more importantly, how do I actually make it happen, instead of just reacting to whatever life throws at me?
So, I decided to try something different. This wasn’t some grand, complicated plan, just a simple dive into my own “weekly expectations.” The first thing I did was just grab an old notebook, nothing fancy, just a cheap one I had lying around. I drew a big line down the middle of a page. On one side, I wrote “Expected,” and on the other, “Reality.”
Then, I started to just brain-dump. What were the big things coming up this week? I wrote down that call I had with a client on Tuesday, the report I needed to finish by Wednesday, hitting the gym three times, making sure I cooked dinner instead of ordering out every night. I even put in some personal stuff, like “read that book for an hour,” or “call Mom.” It was a mess, honestly, just a stream of consciousness.
After I filled up the “Expected” side with pretty much everything that crossed my mind, I took a step back. It looked like a lot. Way too much, probably. But the point wasn’t to make a perfect plan; it was to just get it all out and see what I was actually holding in my head about the week ahead. This was my raw data, my initial “horoscope,” if you will, but it was coming straight from my own brain, not some star chart.
As the week started, I tried to keep this notebook open on my desk. Every morning, I’d glance at my “Expected” list. Now, here’s where the “Reality” side came in. As things happened, or didn’t happen, or as new things popped up, I’d jot them down. That Tuesday call? Yeah, it happened, but it ran way over, pushing back the report. So, on the “Reality” side, I’d note “Call ran long, report moved to Thursday.” Gym? Only made it twice. Cooked dinner? Three nights out of five, which was better than nothing.
It was messy, folks. There were things I completely forgot I’d put on the “Expected” list. There were unforeseen problems that hijacked entire afternoons. But what surprised me was how much better I felt just having this record. Instead of feeling like a total failure when things didn’t go as planned, I could actually see why they didn’t. I could see the actual events that shifted my “expectations.”
By Friday, that notebook page was a scribble-filled testament to a week lived. The “Expected” side still looked a bit ambitious, but the “Reality” side was a play-by-play of the actual week. I didn’t beat myself up for not hitting every single expectation. Instead, I could look at the “Reality” side and say, “Okay, this is what truly happened. This is what I actually accomplished amidst the chaos.”
My biggest takeaway from that simple practice was this: you can have all the expectations in the world, you can even wish upon a darkstar, but without actually tracking and acknowledging the reality of your week, you’ll always feel like you’re chasing something. This wasn’t about perfect execution; it was about understanding the gap between what I thought would happen and what actually did. It was about giving myself a tangible record to learn from, instead of just letting the week vanish into thin air.
I still do a version of this now. Not always in a notebook, sometimes just a quick note on my phone, but the principle is the same. Just getting a grip on what I think is coming and then seeing what actually shows up. It just helps me feel a bit more grounded, a bit more in control, even when the unexpected inevitably rolls in.
