Man, let me tell you. For the last six months, I was just spinning my wheels. You know that feeling? You’re working hard, doing all the right things, but the results are just… slow. I felt like I was driving a heavy truck through deep mud. Everything was a struggle. Every goal I set up got bogged down in some kind of side mission or just plain mental junk.
I tried the usual stuff. Read a bunch of self-help books, watched those high-energy TED talks, even messed around with some productivity apps. Crap. All of it was too much noise. Too many systems, too many steps. I needed a cheat sheet, something simple that just cut through the BS and told me what my gut already knew. I wasn’t looking for a life change; I was looking for a damn instruction manual for myself.
That’s when I dug up that old concept of the Birth Tarot Card. I remembered reading about it years ago, but I’d dismissed it as hippy nonsense. Now, I saw it differently. Not as magic, but as a shortcut—a psychological profile already set up by people a long time ago. I figured, what’s the harm? It takes five minutes.
My Calculation Process: Punching the Numbers
First thing I did was grab my full birth date. For privacy, let’s just call my date XX/XX/197Y. The method is super basic. You just add up every single digit until you get a number between 1 and 22. No fancy software needed. Just a pencil and the back of an envelope.
I crunched the numbers like this:
- Month digit + Day digit + 1 + 9 + 7 + Y.
- That first sum was something like 38.
- Then I reduced it: 3 + 8 = 11.
Eleven. The final number. Some people reduce 11 further, to 2 (1+1), but I always stick with the Major Arcana numbers 1 through 22. My number landed me on the card that represents illumination, self-reliance, and deep searching. The Hermit, Card Number 9. Which is why this whole exercise clicked so well with the title, “9 tips,” because the number is nine in my case.
I got the card number. The Hermit. Okay. It’s usually described as ‘wise old man looking for truth’ and ‘solitude’. But that’s useless advice. I don’t need to be told to be a wise old man. I needed verbs. Actions. Things I could actually DO to un-stick myself.
The Research and Extraction Phase
This is where I put in the real work. I pulled out three different Tarot books I had lying around—one was some serious academic garbage, one was a modern self-help one, and the third was a simple little deck booklet. I also scoured a bunch of old, text-heavy forum posts I found just by searching for things like “Hermit tarot daily tasks.” I refused to use anything with too many flashing ads or complicated pop-ups. I wanted raw text.
I didn’t care about the mystical meanings. I had one mission: to extract nine solid, simple commands. I wrote down every single action verb or direct instruction I could find that was linked to the card:
- Retreat.
- Study.
- Light a path.
- Simplify.
- Silence.
- Refuse noise.
- Mentorship.
- Audit.
- Be your own teacher.
I had a massive pile of crap. I spent an hour whittling that huge list down, merging similar ideas, and turning the philosophical garbage into blunt, direct advice I could put on a sticky note. I needed things I could look at every damn morning and just do without thinking too hard.
The Nine Practical Tips (My Action Plan)
After all that digging and editing, these are the nine things I settled on. These became my instruction manual for the last two months. I call them my “Hermit Nine.”
Here’s the list I keep taped to my monitor. I literally just started using them, one-by-one, every single day.
- Get Small: Immediately kill one major project idea and focus only on the smallest, most achievable thing left. No big thinking for a week.
- Daily Silence: Take thirty minutes—no music, no podcast, no news. Just sit still and shut up. Total ban on the damn phone.
- Journal the Crap: Before working, write down three things that are worrying me. Then immediately close the notebook and don’t look at it again until the next day. Get it out of your head.
- One Audit: Pick one tool or subscription and figure out if it’s absolutely necessary. If not, cancel it that day. Simplify the environment.
- Find the Old Thing: Re-read one book or one notebook from five years ago. Look for the wisdom I already had and forgot.
- Refuse the Crowd: Actively say no to one social invitation, even if I want to go. Deliberately create space.
- Mini-Teach: Explain one basic concept (work-related or not) to someone who knows nothing about it. Practice articulating simple truths.
- Light the Lamp: Spend fifteen minutes planning the next day’s five tasks before going to sleep. No more, no less. Just five.
- The Solo Walk: At least once a week, walk somewhere new alone, without headphones. Just observe.
The Result: No Magic, Just Less Pain
Look, I’m not saying this made me rich or instantly fixed all my problems. That’s BS. What I am saying is that by forcing myself to do these nine simple things, I cut out about 80% of the mental noise that was driving me nuts. The Hermit card is about bringing the light inwards. And these tips were practical ways to do that. They forced me to stop reacting to the outside world and start building a stable center. I wasn’t trying to find the answers in some guru’s book anymore. I was following my own damn instructions. It’s working. I’m sticking with it. If you’re stuck, go calculate your number and do the same damn thing. Stop reading about it and start doing the action verbs.
