Why Do So Many People Misinterpret “Hustle”?

I am a 22-year-old entrepreneur, and I love working hard. I started a few side businesses besides my studies, and I loved setting them up in my spare time. I also published my first book last year and already launched several online courses about personal growth.

I love working hard because I love creating things and celebrating achievements.

I’d say that I always was competitive, high-achieving, and hard working.

Yet, what I admire most about my work right now is that I have so much freedom. I can choose where, when, with whom, and on which projects to work. That’s fun because this freedom didn’t come to me freely. I had to make tough decisions and create an environment that allows me to work in such a way.

While I love my work, I also love enjoying myself. I travel a lot, eat outside almost every day and take a lot of time for my relationship and my family.

I guess that’s what life is all about.

And that’s also what I communicate on Instagram.

Through my daily stories, I share almost each of my days, and my main content is about personal growth, hard work, and enjoying myself.

While I am living the life of my dreams and sharing excerpts of it in my stories, I often receive messages of people whom I don’t even know personally, who try to educate me on how I should live my life.

They tell me that I work way too much and that I should stop freaking out about personal growth and be happy with what I have.

And it’s funny because I am 100 percent sure that most of these people are not living their wildest dreams, yet, I’d say that I do so.

Obviously, they are spending their time consuming my content and criticizing me instead of focusing on themselves.

I am running my business together with my boyfriend, and as we are traveling a lot, we also work during our vacations. That’s something we genuinely enjoy because those are the times we come up with the best ideas and make big plans to implement once we are back home. We love working at new, inspiring places. Even if work means brainstorming and planning ahead.

And almost every day, no matter if on vacation or at home, I am posting pictures from my workspace with captions like “hustle date”, “late-night hustle session”, “hustle day” or something similar.

I know that per definition, hustle is not the most favorable term.

But I like the word itself. I think it sounds cool, and for me, hustling means working hard for something that I am passionate about.

It means working passionately on something that I believe in.

I wouldn’t use the word if I’d hate doing it, right?

And I wouldn’t post pictures while working if I wouldn’t enjoy what I am doing.

I believe that there’s nothing more beautiful in life than being passionate about something and pouring your heart into achieving specific goals that excite you.

As long as you don’t forget enjoying yourself and your life while doing so, hustling is beautiful.

However, I know that for some people, “hustling” has a negative vibe. I don’t precisely know why that’s the case, but obviously, it is.

On Instagram, I have a following of 5,500 people. So it’s not millions watching my stories. And still, I regularly receive those messages telling me to calm down and take care of myself instead of working so much.

People are sending me messages asking if we never really relax during our vacations and they want to educate me on how unhealthy it is what we are doing.

What people don’t understand is that our trips are no holidays for us anymore.

It’s a lifestyle.

Precisely the lifestyle that we dreamed of.

By doing any other job and being employed, we couldn’t be able to travel so much. I am beyond grateful for being able to decide on where and when to work every day.

But of course, we are relaxing.

For example, in December, we’ve been in Egypt for two weeks. On average, we spent about two to three hours on our laptops per day.

The rest of the time was quality-time and relaxing.

However, just over these two weeks, three people messaged me, asking why we don’t stop working during our holidays.

They see my stories of a hustle session and instantly think that we are not doing anything else.

I am not the person posting bikini pictures or photos of me sipping margaritas all day long. Instead, I want to empower people to work on themselves and on creating a life that they love. I want to encourage them to be confident and go for their dreams. To work hard and achieve anything they dream of because I believe that anything is possible if you set your mind up to it, and work hard.

I see that as my mission, that’s why you’ll see more “hustle stories” than relaxing ones of me.

There’s even a guy who is regularly sending me articles on mental health, trying to convince me that I am working too much.

That’s a pity because I know that if he’d be mindful, he would focus on his own life instead of sending me weird articles.

Plus, the funny side is that I am 100 percent sure that he is working more than I do.

On average, I am not working more than 40 hours per week. Sometimes, I work until midnight, but that’s because I do other things during the rest of the day. That’s why people think that I am working way more than they do.

I am a fan of working smart. I don’t believe that working a lot itself is a way to succeed. But I also don’t believe in results without action.

I trust the universe, and I am convinced that we all attract what we focus on, yet, I also believe in the law of action.

The more action you take, the likelier it is that you will achieve what you dream of.

I understand that, according to the dictionary, to hustle doesn’t spread sunshine and happiness.

But that’s not how I am using it. If I’d feel rushed, aggressive and bad, I’d obviously not use that word at all.

I don’t believe that our work should be the central part of our lives, yet, it is a big part of it, at least as long as you don’t make enough money so that you don’t need to worry about work anymore.

And as long as I “have to work” I’d rather work passionately and enjoy what I am doing, which for me means hustling.

I don’t care if I work on a Monday or Sunday if it’s 10 AM or 10 PM. As long as I am happy with my results and satisfied overall, I will try to encourage more people to go after their dreams and hustle in order to achieve them.

I lately saw an old vision board of mine with the following quote:

I’d rather hustle 24/7 than slave 9 to 5.

I’d definitely not do that. I don’t know what I thought at that time, but I’d not want to cut out on the rest of my life to work 24/7.

Never say never, but that’s my take on it right now.

If I had to hustle lots, without satisfying results, I’d probably consider a 9 to 5.

But as long as I am happy with my results, I’ll keep hustling and sharing Instagram stories about it.

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