I have a cliché theory about work and life in general: things always happen when you least expect them.
BUT
You need to put everything in place for them to happen in the first place.
However, the more you wish for them to happen right here and now the less likely your wish will be granted now or ever.
Although it's the preparing and forecasting that make a healthy business, it's the letting go that makes running a business (and living life in general) somewhat interesting.
So every time a client doesn't give me news for a while. Every time business is slow. Every time projects are put on hold or aborted. Every time the future seems too uncertain for comfort.
Every time I wonder how the hell I'm going to keep providing that lifestyle to my children or just feed them for that matter.
Every time I tell myself I will never be able to retire, period.
I take a deep breath and go back to the drawing board.
I go back to moving things around. Retinking my trade. Rearranging my services. Putting things in order.
And the more I hold on to what I know I should hold on to - what's good about what I do - the more I can let go of what doesn't work and let my mind open to what could be and what has to stay.
The more things take a turn for the better eventually. And the more things I had forgotten I had wished for actually turn out to come true/through.
In 13 years of freelance work and almost 43 years of life, it's never failed to amaze me: how sorting things out and moving forward without letting go of what's really important can help me stay true to my core while adding up value here and there.
So old clients keep coming back and new ones give me new work. And those who don't are not worth worrying about.
Things always happen when you least expect them to.
But you need to keep moving forward for them to catch up with you someday, somehow, somewhere.