Is ‘Hustle Culture’ Really Worth it?
Exploring aspects of Hustle Culture nobody talks about
Let me guess, you fall into one of two camps.
Camp 1: You HATE hustle culture. You think that it is toxic and unhealthy. You think that those people are just heading for a burnout. You would say that it’s not about working hard, but rather it's about working smart.
Camp 2: You LOVE hustle culture. You put in those long hours that many people are not willing to do. You’re putting yourself through sacrifice to achieve the goals that you want to achieve.
Even though I’ve been in both camps, both of these judgements are wrong. Instead, I believe that there are different stages of hustling to be successful and problems usually arise when you end up working on the wrong things.
The Stages of ‘Hustle Culture’ to Success:
Stage 1: Take Action and Work Hard
“If you put me in the right place, I’ll be able to move the world”- Archimedes
Archimedes was a mathematician and what he’s hinting towards here was leverage. As theoretically with the correct leverage, it is possible to move the Earth. Obviously, in reality, no man can move the Earth.
Despite this, the principle of creating leverage to do monumental work is very applicable in business and life. For instance, when you start up a new business, the only asset you have is your time. This means that ideally, you would want to get things done in the shortest amount of time to generate massive results i.e. creating the most leverage to get your business running.
It’s interesting when trying to find the sweet spot when working, as it usually looks something like this:
This varies for everyone and its something you have to experiment for yourself. To help with this, I would strongly recommend reading this story if you are struggling to be productive, which requires no motivation.
Besides, what people in hustle culture get wrong is that, if it comes to giving up on your sleep, it's not worth it in the long run. In essence, it's about getting the most output for the least amount of inputs, which ties in greatly into Stage 2 when hustling.
Stage 2: Elimination and Optimisation
Many people, including me, have fallen into the trap of ‘what’s the fastest way for me to generate money?’ or ‘what is the perfect story to post?’. In reality, it is impossible to skip from stage 1 to stage 2, as taking action and working hard provides you with all the data necessary to optimise your progress. It’s like turning a car without moving it first. The best advice I can give you here is to simply:
do fewer things
Once you’ve tried a lot of different things, pick the few things which provide the most leverage.
The thing is you could be work super hard on the wrong things where you will make no progress. So it's not necessarily about how hard you work, but what you work on. When done correctly, you will end up having a model not just for business but for life and how you use your time. As a result, you’ll understand what activities you should be doing regularly.
Once you’ve figured that out, its a clear shifting point. This is because all you will be thinking about is how you are going to improve on the thing that you are currently doing. This is when you get to storm ahead of the competition and generate massive results. With this, you would realise the power in elimination and simplification.
Phase 3: Teamwork and Interconnection
Understandably, the perfect counterexample to stage 2 would be Elon Musk. But, the difference between Elon Musk and us is that Elon Musk already has leverage. He already has a lot of money, brand recognition and talent. Talent is the main word there as to whether Elon Musk works hard or not, it doesn't matter as he has 56,000 employees working whether he’s working or not. So with this, I believe that:
Who you’re working with is far more important than what you are working on
The Toxic Darkside of ‘Hustle Culture’:
As you may know, despite all the rewards that come from working extremely hard, the process is not all rainbows and sunshine. You may even begin to doubt the process as you compare your results to others who end up becoming more successful by doing much less.
This quote by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal justifies the human nature of the need hustle, as he states:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pascal
Even going back even further into history, the ancient wisdom of Stoicism teaches us that the negative emotions and what we depict as “stress” is not inflicted on us by external circumstances and events. Instead, they are the result of the judgments and expectations we make about the external world.
In other words, we compete with everyone (especially ourselves) to work harder and faster. We think it’s expected of us and that ultimately it will make us more successful and happier. However, in reality, the Stoics would say that only we can control our happiness from within.
So now the real question is:
Why do we put ourselves through this?
The FOMO- fear of missing out- As Alice Boyes, the author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit puts this simply. “It’s easy to feel that at any moment, you’re missing out on capitalizing on an opportunity and therefore falling behind your competitors/peers.”
In other words, instead of being present in life, you end up worrying so much about what others may be achieving in the given moment. Thus you feel that you are wasting every second if you are not working.
The need for Constant Productivity- This sometimes makes people feel pressured to turn every hobby into a side hustle. As a result, you end up putting a monetary value on the time spent and allow it to be a source of stress.
I’m going to be vulnerable here and say that this is how I initially felt about writing for Medium, but I soon realized that I feel more fulfilment in creating passionate stories that may impact you, the reader. Hence, I instead view earnings from Medium as a bonus rather than the main objective.
As a result of these reasons mentioned above for hustling, you may find yourself being stuck in this viscous demotivation cycle, greatly portrayed by Joel V Zachariah:
Imposter syndrome- one doubting their own accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.
In other words, you tend to usually undervalue your skills and progress that you’ve made from hustling, as you feel that everybody else around you constantly expects more from you. As a result, you end up grinding to the point where you are burnt out and constantly feel diappointed in yourself.
In my experience, I have definitely encountered this in my life. Whether that was to do with how I was viewed by others, how I should look like or even how I’m succeeding academically. This is a mental issue and if you do happen to deal these thoughts on a regular basis, please do not ignore it!
One way in which I’ve dealt with this was simply by talking to someone. I guess even posting stories on Medium make it so that I’m able to convey my struggles to you, the reader, who may be experiencing something similar. This way I’m able to create positive impact both in my life and in yours too.
Conclusion
I believe that you should partake in ‘Hustle Culture’ to an extent, despite all the negative effects that I’ve mentioned. The way I see it, I would much rather take action and try to reach my goals rather than not trying and regretting it later in life.
This is assuming that all the other areas in your life, which are just as important, are taken care of. For instance: your physical and mental health, your social life, self-development etc. Nevertheless, there may be some goals in life that may require you to sacrifice the other areas in life. To that I want you to ask yourself:
Is the sacrifice now worth the fulfilment that I’ll get in the future?
