Yo WFUN Nation!

Ever get that feeling you're falling short of doing something consistently, that you used to take pride in?

I've been thinking about this lately, watching how our patterns change over time. Sometimes drastically, sometimes so slowly we barely notice until we look back.

Maybe you used to be a consistent person naman talaga. The type who had their systems down pat.

Like... remember when - every morning, kahit anong mangyari, you'd send out those messages like clockwork. Now? You're lucky if you remember to check your leads folder once a week.

Or maybe you built your whole reputation on quick turnaround times. Your clients knew they could count on you to deliver within 24 to 48 hours. These days? Parang ang hirap na gumalaw, and you find yourself constantly apologizing for delays.

This shows up in different ways for different people. You might've been someone who had a solid morning routine - checking emails, updating tasks, touching base with clients.

Ngayon? It takes two cups of coffee just to open your laptop.

Or perhaps you're someone who had a perfect streak of meeting deadlines, tapos bigla na lang... you're watching yourself drop the ball more often than you'd like to admit.

Hindi ka nag-iisa. I see this pattern everywhere in our community.

Pero bakit kaya ganun? Why do we fall off our rhythm?

This question bothered me enough that I decided to dig deeper. After watching this happen countless times (and experiencing it myself), I knew there had to be some pattern to it all.

So I did what I always do when I need clarity - I pulled out my old journals and tried connecting the dots.

I spent a couple hourse looking at the heavy events I had records of, trying to understand how they affected my frame of mind at the time.

While I don't have complete documentation (sino ba ang perfect mag-journal diba?), I did notice something interesting. I tend to write more when I'm feeling down, so aside from writing down goals, my writing seemed to trend towards negative things that happened in my life.

So eventually, patterns started emerging.

What I found was fascinating. There were clear periods when I was consistently on top of everything - and yes, the financials were great too. (I could verify this by checking my PayPal reports for those same periods).

But more importantly, when I did a brain dump of all my projects during different periods, I noticed something crucial: kapag too many things were going on, that's when I'd start falling off my habits. (like duh, haha. ano pa nga ba. Kasi you'd start dropping the ball on other commitments)

Usually, these dips in consistency happened either when:

1. Something big was happening in my personal life (both good and bad events count)

2. I was juggling too many projects at once

3. Or right after achieving something significant (parang nag-relax masyado)

What happens in our lives (outside of freelancing) impacts our work. We don't work or create stuff in a vacuum after all.

Now this is neither good nor bad, it just is. Just stating a simple fact.

You're not a robot. You're a human being with real emotions...

Maybe you're having conflict at home.. for example, may in-law ka that you don't get along with, tapos andito pala sila sa house nyo for several weeks, and it's dragging your productivity down.

Or maybe a family member is sick, and you need to take care of them.

Or maybe a real loss occurs. That pain follows you.

Maybe din you have a really huge win, and you loosen up and wanted to relax, or nagbakasyon ka nang matagal pero you're struggling to get back in the grind uli.

And it's going to affect your freelancing business din.

Ganon lang talaga.

So if you're going through something right now, I want to say this:

Just be gentle with yourself.

Tao lang din tayo.

It's okay to do less din minsan. You're not the Energizer Bunny. You're allowed to make mistakes and mag walling din minsan hehe.

Just take it day by day.

Even more importantly, don't beat yourself up if you see other freelancers getting their wins tapos you seem to be unmoving.

It's their time in the sun lang and you just need to slowly build your momentum back up.

In future emails, we'll talk about specific ways to get back on track, pero for now, just breathe.

Heavily breathing,

Shoden "Also Human" San

PS: What usually throws you off your rhythm? Hit reply and let me know - sometimes just naming it helps us deal with it better.

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