Hustle Culture is a Trap

Hustle culture is part of a systemic malfunction that teaches us we have to keep going and working harder even when we shouldn’t. Read below to find out a better way of living.

So tired.

It really doesn’t add up, once you start to do the math: eight hours of sleep, ten (or fourteen?) hours of work, an hour of working out, a half-hour of meditating, Zoom drinks with friends, bonding time with the kids, more housework than ever before, make sure you mentor and give back, call your Senators, protect your privacy online, manage all that comes with living through a pandemic and actually by the way, women do enough unpaid labor every year that if we made even minimum wage for it, we’d collectively make more than the 50 biggest companies in the world combined.

Is anyone else tired?

I’ll admit it: I used to think hustling was legit! I used to think that it was a badge of honor to have an insane schedule, to have client meetings in the back of speeding cars, to do conference calls while I worked on writing white papers, and made school lunches. People were impressed and all like, “I don’t know how she does it!” (Cue Sarah Jessica Parker movie reference.)

Especially with society making it almost an insult to get 8 hours of sleep or take a couple of days off from work, not being constantly on the move was shameful. I would feel guilty if I wasn’t go, go, go all of the time. There was no bigger fear than the FOMO.

Hustling is a trap.

Not choosing to make time for anything besides work is what’s actually ridiculous. Always being in a state of panic or feeling rushed is not something to be proud of. It took me a while to understand this.

Now I am fully anti-hustle. As I mentioned above, I hustled for many, many years. As a part of tech and startup culture, as a New Yorker, as a single mom… I felt like I had to hustle to survive (or at least to thrive.) It seemed like table stakes.

And so I did! But I was wrong.

Hustling is a trap. Hustling is dangerous. Hustling left me distracted and unfocused and overwhelmed and chronically ill. My body was basically like slow the f*ck down! I didn’t listen until….. it broke down. (You saw that coming, right?)

Less about expectations, more about experience.

These days, I am in a more slow-flowing, time-taking, space-giving, letting-things-unfold kind of a place. And I like it. Less about expectations, more about the experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the hustlers in my life! I just want to create some space for them to slow down as well. To let them know that sleep and rest are not for the weak. That it might actually mean you know what matters in the long run and you’ve set your priorities right.

Join the Hustle Less Club 🏆

I would like to invite you in joining in choosing to hustle less. To do one thing at a time, leave early and allow more time than we think we need, say no to favors from people who never pay them back, and delete emails we never wanted. Sometimes we can literally just sit still. Not even meditating. Just sit still and do nothing. How glorious.

The “hustle less club” is right here for you to join at any moment. All you have to do is say no to something you don’t want to do, or leave five minutes early, or refuse to do two things at once. Here are three simple ideas:

Put your phone into airplane mode.
Turn off the music in your car.
Refuse to turn your hobby into a business.

Simple moves like this are all it takes. If this resonates with you, check out our post Self Love Practices. We also have many free meditation script offerings in our resource library.

Whether you are a hustler or a slow-flow-kinda human, remember to go gently!

xo,