I wasn’t looking for signs or spooky alignment when I started this whole thing. I just needed to clean up some old digital clutter last month. I was seriously
sifting through the archive folder I had labeled “2020/2021 Hot Mess.” You know the one—where you just dump everything you don’t want to look at for two years.
I
stumbled upon
a weird little screenshot from October 2020. I remember
saving it
back then and
scoffing at it
. It was a career horoscope for Virgos, predicting some big “financial re-evaluation” and warning about “legacy streams drying up.” I
deleted it
immediately, then
pulled it back from the digital trash can
just to make fun of it later. Classic me.
But seeing it now, four years later,
made me pause
. I
remembered how tight things got
around the winter of 2020. I suddenly
felt the urge
to see if that silly prediction, made by some website I only visited once, had actually
coincided with the beginning
of my real-life financial pivot.
The Deep Dive: Connecting the Stars to the Spreadsheets
The first thing I
did was pull up
my old, messy income tracker. This wasn’t some fancy accounting software; it was a basic Google Sheet where I
dumped my gross income figures
every month. I
went straight to
the column for late 2020 and early 2021.
What I
found was an immediate gut-punch
. The horoscope was right on the money—literally. I
had been relying
almost entirely on one big client, a contract I
had held onto
for years. That contract
terminated unexpectedly
in November 2020. It
wasn’t a slow taper
; it was a complete stop.
My income immediately crashed
, and I
spent the next six months scrambling
to find my footing again. When I
looked at the chart
, the drop was sharp, painful, and directly followed that October prediction.
I
spent a whole afternoon digging
deeper,
comparing the month-by-month notes
I’d scribbled in the spreadsheet back then with the general vibe of the “re-evaluation” the horoscope had mentioned.
This is what my practice notes
showed when I lined them up
:
- October 2020: I
received the first subtle hint
that the big contract might be restructured. I
ignored it
, thinking it was just talk. (Horoscope: Financial Re-evaluation is imminent.)
- November 2020: The contract
was officially gone
. Panic
set in
. I
wasted two weeks sulking
. (Horoscope: Legacy streams will dry up.)
- December 2020 – March 2021: I
started throwing darts everywhere
,
taking on tiny jobs
for pennies, and
built up a frustrating collection
of half-finished pitches. I
felt like I was just surviving
. (Horoscope: A necessary period of restructuring and skill acquisition is needed for long-term growth.)
It
didn’t feel like destiny
; it
felt like I had been warned
and
just didn’t listen
. The stars didn’t cause the client to leave; my
over-reliance caused the crash
. But the timing? That’s what really
got under my skin
.
The Long-Term Outlook: Getting Out of the Mess
The true value of this silly little exercise
wasn’t proving a horoscope right
; it
was understanding what happened next
.
I
fast-forwarded the spreadsheet
to mid-2022, and the chart
looked completely different
. Why? Because the crash
forced me to diversify
. I
finally stopped
chasing the big single client and
started building a portfolio
of smaller, retainer-based work. I
invested
time in a whole new skill set I’d been putting off for years.
I
remembered the exact moment
in the spring of 2021 when I
stopped feeling sorry for myself
and
started aggressively networking
. I
told myself
: “Never again will one client
determine whether I can pay the rent
.” That promise
is the real long-term outlook
.
The Oct 2020 prediction, whether lucky guess or cosmic warning,
only describes the problem
. The years that followed
describe the solution
. The
current money situation
, which is way better and far more stable than it was in 2020,
isn’t because the stars aligned
. It
is because I moved
. I
finally executed
the painful pivot I
had been avoiding
.
So,
is that specific horoscope still affecting my money today
? No. My
money today is affecting the structure I built
to make sure that specific crisis
can never happen again
.
I ripped apart my business model
,
built it back up brick by brick
, and now I
have three strong income streams
where I used to have one wobbly one. That’s the only outlook I care about.
My
final takeaway
from this little trip down memory lane? Don’t wait for a horoscope to
tell you your business model is fragile
.
Get scared right now
, and
start building backup systems
.
I learned my lesson the hard way
, but at least I
learned it
.
