Breathe. You're not as late as you think.

The guilt of "not doing enough" is lying to you.

Hi there 🧡

It hasn’t stopped raining for weeks. You’re at your desk. Blank screen.

Someone just launched their offer. 5-figure week. Screenshots. Confetti emojis.

You close the app. Look at your to-do list.

Nothing done. Again.

And the little voice starts: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I move? Why are they amazing at everything they do?”

I know that voice.

I’m living in France & it hadn’t stopped raining for 6 weeks straight (I can’t even remember what the sun and blue sky look like!).

I just launched Yearly Flow 3 weeks ago — super intense, draining, but also incredibly rewarding (special thanks to everyone who joined 🧡).

And honestly? The post-launch crash hit me hard. Mood down. Productivity nowhere.

I was staring at a blank Notion page wondering the same thing you are right now.

Here’s the truth:

Nothing is wrong with you, or with me.

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The guilt you’re feeling right now?

It’s manufactured.

Social media shows you the peak. The launch. The revenue post. The “we did it” story.

It does not show you the week before. The grey mornings. The blank screen. The half-finished email sitting in your drafts for 11 days.

That part? Nobody posts that.

So you compare your behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel.

And you lose. Every time.

Stop.

That’s not a fair fight. Period.

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Let me reframe this.

Slowing down is not stopping.

It’s part of the rhythm.

Every launch has a crash. Every sprint has a recovery. Every creative season has a fallow period & that fallow period is not wasted time.

It’s your brain refueling.

Think about it:

A field that’s farmed every single season without rest stops producing. Not because it’s broken. Because it was never given the chance to recover.

You are not a machine. You are not supposed to operate at 100% every single week of every single year.

The problem isn’t you.

The problem is the lie that productive = always moving.

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So what do you actually do when you’re in this season?

A few things that work — not when you’re at 100%, but when you’re at 30%.

→ Name what you’re feeling.

Open your notes app. Write it out. Not to fix it. Just to see it clearly.

“I feel behind. I feel guilty. I feel like everyone is doing more than me.”

Putting words on it shrinks it. What’s unnamed feels enormous. What’s named becomes manageable.

→ Zoom out on what you’ve already built.

You’ve shipped things. You’ve figured things out. You’ve kept going on days when stopping would have been easier.

That counts. Take time to remind yourself how far you’ve already come.

→ Remove one thing from your environment that makes you feel bad.

Unfollow the people who make you feel guilty, anxious, stressed, or like you’re constantly comparing yourself to others.

Anything that drags you down or makes you feel bad about yourself, unfollow without guilt. Your mental space is a workspace too.

Focus on your goals, your life, and you’ll feel so much better for it.

→ Let your system do the thinking for you.

This is not the week to build something new.

This is the week to open your Notion, check your next action, and do only that. One thing. The friction of deciding what to do is often heavier than the task itself.

Dead simple systems exist exactly for this. For the 30% weeks.

→ Do something with your hands.

Step outside. Cook something. Rearrange a room.

Your brain needs a different input. Not more business content. Not another podcast about productivity.

Something that reminds you you’re a human, not just a founder.

We all have amazing ideas under the shower & that’s not a coincidence.

Don’t force yourself, take the necessary time to explore new activities, try this recipe you saved a long time ago.

My husband and I made clay sculptures last weekend. Mine looked like a potato with eyes. I didn’t care. It wasn’t a competition on the most beautiful one, it was all about doing something not connected.

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Result?

You won’t go from stuck to crushing it overnight.

But you’ll stop the spiral & that’s the first move.

Here’s what I want you to do right now:

Reply to this email. One sentence.

Tell me where you’re at this week.

I read every reply. And sometimes, just knowing someone’s listening is enough to get unstuck.

Stay awesome 🧡

Marlene

Simplify. Organize. Find Your Flow.

P.S. If this week feels heavy, you don't need a new system. You need a simpler one. One that works even when you're running on empty. That's exactly what I built, check it here.

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You’ll be such an incredible solopreneur if you:

• New free Notion templates are out. The kind that do the organizing so you can focus on your Signal. Get them here →

• In my Socks (real solopreneur stories, zero BS) on Apple - Spotify

• YouTube is my next Signal. Get notified when I'm back.