If you are a regular on Linkedln, you might be familiar with Elon Musk’s famous (or infamous) statement, “Nobody has ever changed the world with a 40 hours work week.” Multibillionaire Musk said this while emphasizing the need for employees and entrepreneurs to work more at their jobs or ventures.
Unfortunately, he isn’t the only one.
Social media is filled with different industry leaders and people who have supposedly ‘made it’ in life, dishing out praises for a work-invested lifestyle. This idea is so popular it has a name of its own – hustle culture.
One of the worst trends from the toxic self-help hustle culture is the ‘rise and grind’ mindset, where you must put your work life ahead of your relationships and well-being to pursue some vague goals. It is a mentality that glorifies the ideas of brute-force-driven labor.
While being toxic and ineffective, the idea of hustle culture is still a highly manipulative one. It markets itself with ideas of higher pay, promotions, and better working conditions. It is presented to you as a legitimate choice to move ahead in life.
Those who aren’t a part of it are lazy and dejected ones who are up to no good. It makes you believe that the only people who deserve success are those who are a part of this non-stop grind.
So even with apparent and obvious red flags, people still start accepting hustle culture in their lives and become a part of the problem. If you are one of those, this post is a wake-up call. If you are still on the fence, this is a reminder.
In this post, we will dive deeper into the drawbacks of hustle culture and the reasons why it makes your life absolutely miserable. Let’s get started.
Reasons Why Hustle Culture Makes Our Life Miserable
1. It sells a superficial destination and forgets the journey.
You will see a common trend in all those so-called motivational hustle culture videos – people wearing branded clothes, getting out of expensive jets or cars, or vacationing in exotic places. These people are the center of attention and the stars in their own stories.
These hustle culture trends look like this because they sell you a dream – the dream of becoming popular, rich, cool, and whatnot. And the best way to sell the dream is through a destination.
And so it focuses on the destination. Not the journey. Not the process. Just an over-glorified end product.
This way, they completely sideline efforts and tap into our low-effort and maximum-rewards mentality. They reinforce toxic mindsets like whatever you are sacrificing right now will return to you, but in reality, it doesn’t.
Now don’t get us wrong. All these material things are fun. But if they become the sole focal point of your journey, that’s where you have completely missed the point.
2. Success is far from just hustling.
Success is a factor of a lot of different things combined together. If you believe it’s only about who works the hardest, you are probably missing out on what’s happening in the world.
Success is a privilege. It is as much hard work as luck, being in the right place at the right time, coming up with the right idea, and having the necessary means to execute it. It is about financial literacy, education, knowledge, and life circumstances.
Hustle culture completely ignores these nuances and focuses solely on making you a part of the rat race without giving you any valuable life skills.
3. It severely affects your health and well-being.
Hustle culture glorifies sleeping for three hours and having 18-hour work days. Now, there might be some people who can cope with this, but most of us are not wired to function this way.
Therefore, eventually, it starts taking a toll on our health and well-being. Burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, body pain, appetite changes, and sleep problems are just a few examples of what’s in store if you believe in this do-or-die mentality.
We need to recognize that one more unhealthy, sleep-deprived individual will not change the world. Therefore, ditch this toxic work culture that presumes work is more important than your health and well-being, and start investing in yourself.
Conclusion:
The no-holiday, no-break work life is often glorified in the form of hustle culture in the mainstream media. It is marketed as the only real way to make it in life. However, hustle culture is a web of negativity and toxic work culture that disrupts every aspect of your life, from health to relationships. Therefore, it is important to disengage from it and redefine what success and really “making it” in life means to you.
Burnout is a significant issue for working professionals. To learn more about how to avoid burnout at work, click here.
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