Man, sometimes you just hit a wall, you know? Like, everything you’ve been doing just feels… off. That’s where I was a few months back. My little side gig, the one I poured all my evenings and weekends into, felt stuck. I was pushing and pushing, trying all these new marketing tricks, burning myself out, and frankly, not seeing much payoff. It was frustrating as hell, and I was seriously thinking about just throwing in the towel.
I’m not usually one for super mystical stuff, but I remembered this old, worn-out copy of the I Ching that had been sitting on my bookshelf for years. My grandma gave it to me, said it was good for when your head was spinning. I’d always kinda scoffed at it, but desperate times, right? I figured, what’s the harm in trying something totally different? Anything to get my brain out of its rut.
So, one Tuesday night, after another utterly pointless brainstorming session that ended with me staring blankly at the wall, I pulled the book down. It was thick and heavy, old paper smell. I dug around in a junk drawer and found three old Chinese coins I’d picked up at a market ages ago. They felt nice and weighty in my hand. I poured myself a mug of tea, sat down at my kitchen table, and just kinda… cleared my head. It wasn’t some big ceremony, just me, my tea, the coins, and this nagging feeling of “what the hell do I do?”
Casting the Lines
I started with my question. I didn’t want it to be super vague. I wanted something concrete, like, “What’s the best approach for my business right now to move forward without burning out?” I held the coins in my cupped hands, gave them a good shake, and tossed them onto the table. They clattered, then settled.
- First toss: Two heads, one tail. That made a solid line, a “9,” if I remembered the old book right.
- Second toss: All tails. That was an open, broken line, a “6.”
- Third toss: Two tails, one head. Another broken line, “6.”
- Fourth toss: All heads. That was a “7,” solid.
- Fifth toss: Two heads, one tail. Solid, “9.”
- Sixth toss: One head, two tails. Broken, “6.”
I wrote down the lines from bottom to top, just like the book said. After all that, I had my first hexagram. Then, I had to figure out the “changing lines.” The ones that were “9s” or “6s” change into their opposite. So my two “9s” became broken lines, and my three “6s” became solid lines. That gave me a second hexagram. It felt a bit like putting together a puzzle, kinda meditative, actually.
Digging into the Guidance
Okay, so now I had two hexagrams. I flipped open the I Ching book, found the section for my first hexagram. Man, reading that stuff was a trip. At first, it was just words, ancient poetry, hard to grasp. It talked about “the Creative,” “the Receptive,” “Great Accumulation,” “Obstruction.” My eyes glazed over a bit. I was ready to close the book and admit it was all just nonsense. But something made me keep going. I read the general commentary, then the specific lines for my changing lines.
My initial hexagram was something about “waiting” and “nourishment.” Not what I expected at all. I was looking for a battle plan, for “go forth and conquer!” and it was telling me to… wait. The changing lines then pointed me towards a second hexagram that was all about “inner truth” and “modesty.” It spoke about not pushing against the current, but rather building up strength from within, focusing on what’s real and true, and letting things unfold naturally when the time was right.
Suddenly, it clicked. It wasn’t about the specific marketing strategy or the new product launch I was agonizing over. It was about my approach. I was forcing things, trying to make my business something it wasn’t ready to be, burning myself out in the process. The I Ching wasn’t giving me a “yes” or “no,” it was shifting my perspective entirely. It was telling me to stop striving so hard, to pull back, focus on the core value I offered, and simply do the good work that was already there. It was like a little voice telling me, “Dude, chill. You’re doing too much.”
That night, I didn’t get a concrete step-by-step plan. What I got was a profound sense of relief and clarity. I decided right then to take a step back from all the frantic growth efforts. I stopped trying to chase every new trend. Instead, I spent the next few weeks refining my current offerings, making sure my existing customers were super happy, and just focusing on the quality of my work. I started saying no to things that didn’t align with my core vision, even if they looked shiny. It felt like I was grounding myself.
And you know what? It worked. The pressure eased off. My creativity started flowing again. I wasn’t constantly exhausted. And funny enough, as I focused on quality and my existing base, new opportunities started popping up naturally. Not because I was hunting them down, but because my energy had shifted. The I Ching didn’t fix my business for me, but it damn sure fixed my head, and that was exactly what I needed to get things moving again, but this time, in the right direction.
