Let’s Talk: Hustle Culture

Today’s Let’s Talk post is about hustle culture, which is something a lot of us are all too familiar with. I’m opening up about the effect it’s had on me, why I’m so prone to it, what helps me escape it and more.

I’m someone who for sure finds a portion of their identity in hustle culture: a generational plague, if you will. I’m not talking about those self-identified harping #BossBabes on Instagram (we all know the type), but someone who has found great pride in running my own business on the side and feeling successful at everything I do work-wise. A lot of my identity is in my career. I really feel like my best self when I’m crossing things off my to-do list, reaching goals and representing an elevated version of myself. My Type A personality may be to blame because being driven and passionate feels so good to me. It gives me self confidence that I don’t always naturally have while fulfilling a passion that I haven’t been able to fulfill elsewhere.

To go along with that, I love that I follow a bunch of inspiring women in my age group on Instagram. They feel like my people. I listen to motivational podcasts and gather daily inspiration on Pinterest too. Consuming content like this feels like a great use of my time because it seems to feed me positively. Doing this kind of stuff feels good when I’m in the right headspace. Really good. But when I’m not and I’m overdoing it, it really doesn’t.

I’ve fallen victim to this. Hard.

As a 26-year-old, I feel a lot of pressure to be further along than I am career and money-wise, which is a feeling that I think is especially prevalent for those of us in our twenties. I always feel like I’m not making enough money or I don’t have enough things going for myself, which causes me to want to work excessively. I’m rarely satisfied with what I do have, leading me to dismiss myself from taking breaks in fear of feeling and looking lazy or undeserving. I put an unbelievable amount of pressure on myself and sometimes it gets way too heavy to carry.

I think we can all agree that something that’s a common contributor to hustle culture is pressure found on social media. We have immediate access online to millions of other people our age across the world that are all at different places in their life work-wise and financially — which makes it easy to unknowingly slip into the comparison game. Are they just working harder than me? I never really fell victim to this until the past year or so, and let me tell you, it’s rough.

This has led to me being more critical of myself than I’ve ever been before. More frequently now, I get overwhelmed with feelings that I’m underperforming and underachieving, which can be debilitating. When you’ve proudly self-identified as someone who is successful and “ahead,” any side steps feel like a huge loss. I beat myself up over it.

In actuality, hustle culture is incredibly counterproductive. It leaves you feeling overworked and therefore not bringing your best self or energy to the table, which can reflect negatively in your work itself and your relationships. It’s so important to nurture other areas of your life too so you don’t look back on everything and only see your work successes (I need to reread this 1,000 times and drill it into my brain). Though I live a very happy life, I need to learn to find personal fulfillment elsewhere and be proud of myself beyond just my work successes.

I’ve had the desire to be a few things for as long as I can remember: a wife, mom and probably a business owner. I see myself potentially being self-employed one day, and not knowing when or how I want to make that happen adds to my frenzied hustle mindset sometimes. Personally, I don’t have a desire to climb the corporate ladder. By that, I mean being Business Barbie in a pantsuit and heels in a giant office building with a bunch of subordinates under me doesn’t appeal to me. That’s not my end goal. I love the idea of something I’ve created out of passion to come to full fruition and become my full-time job at some point. Not necessarily any time soon, but one day. Until then I need to enjoy the ride, let go of my own personal pressures and just be.

MINDSET SHIFT

On a side (but related) note, something that sparked an awakening in many of us this week was the sudden death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and 7 other passengers in a helicopter crash in LA. My knowledge and awareness of Kobe Bryant was very basic up until this point, but this tragedy has opened my eyes to some things regardless that I wanted to share since it ties in with this subject. This awful event has reminded me that I put a lot of focus and energy on worries and anxieties that truly don’t matter at the end of the day. I think so much about what I haven’t accomplished, when in reality, so many things go right each and every day for my head to land back on my pillow each night. Each day is filled with so many little successes that it makes me feel guilty for putting myself down for not doing more. With that being said, take a break. Be easy on yourself. You’re going just fine. It’s not a race. Life is short.

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Alright, I’ll stop here with this brain dump. If you’d like, feel free to continue the conversation on hustle culture with me in the comments. Have a great weekend!