How to hustle healthy while keeping your sanity. Why it’s important to realize there are seasons to hustling, to listen to your body when it’s time to slow down and to remember not to lose sight of why you started in the first place.

Why do we hustle?
We hustle for the long-term payoff. But the short-term sacrifice is not always worth it. Learning when to speed up and when to slow down is how to hustle healthy. 

If you get absorbed in the hustle culture for too long, it will consume you. 

Breaking the cycle is the only way to survive hustling. You can’t go full force for the 86,400 seconds in a day, week after week. Make it a priority to schedule breaks and be intentional about it. You meticulously organize your planner with meetings, appointments, and other activities, but you often forget to pen in your free time, your rest time, your self-care time. 

Because if you don’t take the time to slow down, you will risk losing sight of why you started.

If you’re constantly running on that hamster wheel, you will end up going nowhere. You’ll run around and around, watch the world go by around you, and never fully enjoy the process. Your body can’t function in a constant state of fight or flight. 

Getting to my healthcare roots for a moment: being in a stressed state for a prolonged amount of time can lead to conditions such as anxiety, depression, and decreased immune system response leading to a number of medical concerns. Have you noticed that if you feel worn out, if you feel exhausted, you usually end up feeling ill? Your body will respond before your brain accepts it. 

And all that stress will hinder your work performance and affect your ability to produce even mediocre work over time. And it’s more than just your work and health that are affected. It’s your joy as well. When it’s no longer fun for you, when it’s no longer enjoyable, it’s time to move on. Your hustle is taking more from you than what it’s giving you. No amount of money is worth your peace. You shouldn’t exchange your happiness for dollars. Your brain needs rest, your body needs rest, your soul needs rest.

When it starts to feel like a chore, it’s time to let it go. 

When it turns into something you feel like you have to do, when you’re just going through the motions to get it done, it becomes something you dread. It will no longer inspire you, drive you, or add value to your life. You will quickly lose interest, you will start to avoid doing it, and you will give up completely since you aren’t happy. You will lose sight of why you started in the first place. So take the time to slow down before it gets to that point. Because pausing is better than completely giving up on your goals. 

It’s important to understand that there are seasons to hustling. 

I have months of hardcore hustle mentality. I can remember so many times when I didn’t know which job I was going to or when. I had three per diem nursing jobs on multiple different shifts. It was fantastic money, but I was hella exhausted and grumpy. I noticed that I was becoming a completely different person. It’s not what I wanted for myself. 

So I slowed down, I dwindled down to one. I would cycle through this on and off whenever I felt like it. Whether it was multiple nursing jobs or just little side gigs, I never had just one job for very long. The important thing though, was that I was in control of this. I got to decide when I worked too much, and when I listened to what my body, my mind, my soul were telling me.  

In fact, I had three jobs as recently as this past Monday. My full-time remote job, my independent contractor position building travel nurse profiles, and providing morning care for a neighborhood child. I decided to step away from the morning care hustle. It was a perfect extra gig though: convenient, paid nicely, and fits into my schedule well. But I wanted that 1.5 hours back in my morning. I wanted to enjoy my million cups of coffee, I wanted to be able to read or write for Shatter It or my book, I wanted to snuggle up on the couch under blankets and stay out of the cold. Why did I decide not to just sacrifice that time and push through it? It’s only a small fraction of my day after all. It’s because I am choosing to listen to what I need, and because my priorities are shifting.

When we feel the need to slow down, when we feel the need to change seasons, this doesn’t mean we failed.

Redirecting your energy and time is not interchangeable with giving up. You decided to reorganize your life and realized the extra money isn’t important in your current season. This is how you find balance. You learn when you should slow down and when you should grind. It’s how you develop a healthy hustle mentality. And don’t ever feel guilty about slowing down. Don’t ever feel guilty about doing non-work related activities. You are reprioritizing your needs to fit the current season of your life. 

Remember that you don’t need to do everything at once. 

Have you heard the phrase “pace car, not race car”? Or “it’s a marathon, not a sprint”? That’s the way you should look at life. Getting morbid for a minute, but the only true finish line is death. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not in a hurry to get there. Though I say this, I am also the first person to feel the pressure of needing to do everything instantly. 

I noticed over the last few years, that my creativity has grown into something hard to manage. My ideas are like creeping vines, spreading fast and invading my thoughts. Part of the reason I feel like I need to go fast at times is that I feel like someone will beat me to the idea, do it better than me, or it will be too late for me to break out. Ridiculous reasons to put pressure on myself. The only person I should be competing with is who I was yesterday. Not a person, not a clock, not an idea. When you put things into perspective, when you make yourself and your needs precedence over money, you win no matter what. The money will come, the time will not. 

How do you know when it’s time to slow down the hustle? 
How do you develop a healthy hustle mentality?

• Awareness: Pay attention to how you are feeling when you start pushing yourself. Take note of when your feelings change. Because when you start sacrificing your happiness, it’s probably a sign that you need to slow down, take a step back, and reassess the big picture. 

• Your “why”: Remind yourself of your why. If your current season is not matching up with your short or long-term goals, it might be time to slow down and reassess. 

• Rewards: You shouldn’t be working this hard for nothing. If you want to stay motivated, if you want to prevent burnout, you need to reward yourself now rather than later. Little enjoyments along the way will remind you why you started. 

• Work hard, but rest harder: Another way to prevent burnout and stay motivated is to rest. It will do wonders for your overall well-being. Be compassionate to yourself, take care of yourself, and plan rest periods for yourself. 
  
  

Until next week,