Okay, look. I know the title sounds like some New Age junk, but seriously, hear me out. I’m a Pisces, and I’m usually the last person to check this mystical stuff. I’ve always been about grinding, not stars, you know? But for the last six months, I was totally stuck. Dead in the water. I had this side gig, this “passion project” I thought was my big breakthrough, and it was just eating up all my time and money. I was spinning my wheels.
The Moment I Cracked and Checked the Stars
I remember it was a Tuesday. Early. I’d been up since 4 AM trying to fix some stupid CSS layout that was breaking on mobile. I hadn’t seen the sun in days. My main job was stressing me out, and this side hustle was adding stress, not relief. I was scrolling through feeds, half-asleep, and this article popped up: “Get your career horoscope pisces daily today!” I thought, what the hell. Can’t hurt.
I clicked the link, fully expecting garbage. The site was one of those old, flashing messes. I located the Pisces section and the advice? Super basic, generic stuff. Something like, “A true friend will surface today, offering advice. Trust their counsel, and remove the obstacles that are blocking your future growth.” Real deep, right? I almost clicked away.
But then something clicked in my head. I didn’t see a friend; I saw myself giving the advice. The obstacle? That stupid side project. It was the thing that was supposed to save me but was actually drowning me. The horoscope was the kick in the butt I needed to stop being an idiot and admit the thing was a failure.
The Practice: Killing My Own Darlings
I decided right then and there. Enough was enough. I’d spent two solid years building that junk, pouring every spare hour into it. I opened my laptop, which I usually avoid on Tuesdays, and I went straight into the server dashboard. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the plug. I mean, literally. I logged into the hosting account and hit the ‘cancel subscription’ button for the domain and the hosting. I watched the confirmation email arrive. It felt like tearing off a Band-Aid that had been stuck on for years. The physical relief was immediate. Massive.
My first recorded actions of the day were simple but brutal:
- Action 1: Pulled the plug on the side project’s hosting. Just killed it.
- Action 2: I deleted all the half-finished code folders from my local drive. I didn’t move them to a ‘backup’ folder. I sent them straight to the bin and emptied it. No going back.
- Action 3: I set up a recurring calendar reminder for the next six months that just said: “DO NOT START NEW PROJECTS.”
- Action 4: I actually slept that night. A full eight hours. Not 4 AM work, but actual, deep sleep.
The Real Reason I Was Looking at Horoscopes
Why was this side project so hard to let go of? It wasn’t the code. It was the memory of why I started it. It reminds me of my first big job. I was working at this firm, right? Everything was great until I got a new manager—this total snake, let’s call him Mitch—who played favorites and loved making people miserable. He was the reason I was trying to build my own exit ramp.
I was the lead on this massive Q3 project. We all pulled all-nighters to get it done. The minute we delivered, Mitch took the credit, and then, within the week, he wrote me up for some minor procedural crap, completely out of the blue. I was shocked. I challenged him on it. I walked into his office and laid out the facts, showing him the email chain where he signed off on the procedure. He just sat there, smug, and told me to clean out my desk by the end of the day. No severance. Nothing.
I was so angry. I spent the next year fighting that company for what I was owed, all while trying to launch this side project to show them I didn’t need their garbage. That side hustle became less about a new business and more about holding onto that resentment. It was a chain, locking me to a past failure. I had let an old wound become my new job.
The Boost That Actually Worked
After I killed the project, I suddenly had 20 extra hours a week. What did I do? I went back to basics. The horoscope said “boost your job,” so I focused on the job I had, not the job I wanted but couldn’t create because I was too busy being mad and coding junk.
I identified the biggest skill gaps in my current role—which was containerization and orchestration—and I started practicing the stuff I was weak on. I dedicated three hours daily to deep-diving into serverless architecture and Kubernetes. I built three small, functional prototypes for my own knowledge—zero clients, zero monetization, just pure learning. I started talking less in meetings and delivering more solid, documented results. I became the guy who just solved the problems silently, instead of the guy who complained loudly.
My manager (a different one, thank God) noticed. He didn’t say anything right away. But last month, he called me into his office—and for a second, I thought, oh no, here we go again. But he actually handed me a bonus check that was bigger than the money I’d lost on the side project and offered me the permanent lead architect role on the new Q1 deployment. Said I was the only one who seemed focused and wasn’t messing around with random low-value stuff.
The “best advice to boost your job” wasn’t in the stars. It was that moment of clarity, using the generic horoscope as an excuse to get rid of the anchors and start doing the real, dirty work that matters. My career horoscope today? It’s whatever I choose to make it, now that the junk is cleared out. My advice? Get started. Just start cutting the dead weight.
