Thank god it’s Monday. Said no one ever.
Are you familiar with “the hustle”? If your average day looks a little something like this, then you may be living it out.
You check your phone as soon as you wake up. You trot off to the loo or to brush your teeth or eat your breakfast, all while checking your email. Maybe you do a quick workout, a morning yoga session, meditate for 10 minutes or journal… And then you tweet about it or add it to your Instagram story. You commute to your job – however that may be – listening to an educational industry podcast on the way in, of course. You eat a quick dinner at your desk in between meetings. You “finish” work – after 5pm because you NEVER leave on time – and do your journey in reverse. Let’s face it, you’ve not really finished work because you open your laptop as soon as you walk through the door. You scarf down tea while watching Netflix and simultaneously catching up on your socials. You head to bed around 11pm only to get up and do it all over again.
Or, maybe you don’t chill with Netflix and head to bed. Maybe you have a side hustle, like a blog, a small Etsy store or heck even an OnlyFans. Your evenings, weekends and any free hours are spent working on your second project. Because, let’s face it, life’s expensive and if any of us want to get a mortgage or stop working at 80 we’re going to need lots of savings, right? Even if you feel comfortable in your full time earnings, if you don’t have a side hustle, then what are you even doing with all that spare time. Binge watching TV? Psht. What a waste of time.
In the early hours of the morning, you head to bed for a few hours of shut eye before you’re up and at ’em ready for your full-time commute.
I mean, I’m exhausted just reading that. But hey, at least your shit got done. You’ll sleep when you’re dead, right?
Do what you love.
Hustle harder.
Rise and grind.
Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.
Welcome to hustle culture.
Now, don’t get me wrong, working hard is important and should be a value we try to instil in ourselves and any children we happen to bring into this world. We can’t sit around and wait for the things we want to be handed to us on a silver platter. Our circumstances won’t ever change or improve if we don’t put in the effort.
But that’s not what hustle culture is about.
Hustle culture is about this generation’s addiction to being busy. Even if we just look busy and are not actually being productive. We’re constantly doing more, more, more. And for who?
It’s even coming at the detriment to our health – both physical and mental. Research by Bolton search agency, The Audit Lab, found that 56% of us have felt obligated to go to work even when we feel unwell. And that number rose even further when they asked just women. Our ‘work till we drop’ mindset is stopping us from being honest with our employers and ourselves. And when there’s a global pandemic going on? Not cool, guys.
But it’s something that we feel obligated to do. If others around us are working away, putting in hours before work, after work and at the weekend, we feel like we’re going to be seen as slacking in the eyes of our employers. We work and work and work, because it’s what is expected of us now. If your peers are competitive, then working a normal working week will look like slacking. When in actual fact, it’s just that – a normal working week.
We’re expected to have our work emails on our phones, and our personal numbers in our work signatures, because if technology means we’re contactable 24/7, then there’s no reason why we can’t work, right?
The line between our work and home life is starting to blur, if not disappear altogether especially with working from home being more of the norm. And if that happens, how do we achieve a successful work-life balance? Where does it end?
So, what can we do?
We need to break the cycle. More people need to realise that it’s OK to NOT be busy 24/7. It’s OK to take time for yourself, and it’s absolutely not a waste.
Repeat after me:
I don’t NEED a side hustle.
I don’t NEED to check emails first thing in the morning or reply to them in the evening.
It’s OK to shut my laptop at 5pm and head out the door.
It’s OK to say NO.
The scales need to tip back in favour of life when it comes to the work-life balance, because right now they are swaying drastically in the other direction.
Imagine how much more enjoyable our lives would be if we slowed down, even just a little bit. What if we didn’t rush out of bed, actually did a little self care, and took time away from our devices to be fully present with our partner and our kids? Wouldn’t our lives be so much more fulfilling?
There’s the age old adage of how when you’re on your death bed, nobody wishes they worked more. And it’s true. You may have the biggest house, the fanciest car and the latest tech, but do you have strong relationships with others? Are you loved? Do you love?
Careers are fantastic. They fuel our ambition and can give us a sense of fulfilment, but it shouldn’t be our only sense of fulfilment. If we keep going at this same pace, we’re all going to burn out. At the end of the day, we’re only human and too much stress combined with too little sleep, the wrong foods and not enough water will eventually damage us.
It’s time to put ourselves first.
Ask yourself, why the rush? Why the stress? If your work and career is an important part of your life, that’s ok, but it’s important to find the sweet spot in between that allows you to ‘hustle’ just a little bit, while still feeling like your life has meaning elsewhere.
Let’s all hustle a little less in 2021.
