Hustle, Rinse, Repeat

These days, the most common answer to ‘How’s it going?’ is ‘Busy’. 

Test it out. You’ll see. 

We wear busy-ness like a badge of honour. As if hustling’s main goal is to define us. 

‘Stop the glorification of busy’ mused a meme on Instagram the other day. It stirred me and it kept on tugging at the nagging realisation deep inside that hustling is a hamster wheel that will keep us busy busy busy - but for what? And when is it enough? When do you hang up your hat and say - the hustling has paid off, I’m ready to take things easier. 

No, instead we fill our plate even more. We fill and fill to the overflow and then we complain about how busy, tired and burned out we are. 

No one else is filling your plate. 

Isn’t it time to take a few steps back and do an honest inventory of all your commitments to truthfully reflect if it’s really essential? 

‘It’s not enough to be busy. 

So are the ants. 

The question is: What are you busy about?’

(Henry David Thoreau) 

Essentialism:

Are your daily commitments aligned with your core values and what you want to achieve in your life? 

Have you defined and refined your core values, so that you can use this as a guiding light when you make decisions and commitments in life? 

Perhaps this should be a starting point for the reassessment and realignment: Establishing your core values - as an individual and as a family. 

If you have clarity on what your core values are, making life decisions and daily commitments become effortless. This ties in with a concept that has changed my life and continues to do so on a daily basis: Essentialism. There is an excellent book written on this topic - Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Do yourself a favour…

If you understand the importance of living by the principle of essentialism - ‘disregarding the trivial many for the vital few’ - you will view your entire life in a different light. You will easily discard commitments and time-consuming activities in exchange for zooming in on the activities that are in line with your core values and where you want to head in your life. 

We tend to complain about ‘there are not enough hours in the day for everything I want to do’, but what are you doing to take ownership of how you are filling your hours each day? 

What are your core values?

Let this be your litmus test for each commitment. 

Energy management:

It’s not just about managing time, though, is it? It’s also about managing energy. Many of our commitments drain physical, mental and emotional energy from us to such an extent that we have zero to minimum left to give to what is truly worth our energy. 

So we become impatient, agitated and frustrated. 

And then we feel guilty, because we behave impatiently, with agitation and frustration towards those around us. 

As if they are the ones who have loaded our plate too full and must take it on the chin.

Committing your time to activities, people and tasks that are aligned with your core values will usually energise you instead of draining you from the inside out. 

This is also a useful gauge for each commitment in your life - is it draining or is it life-giving? Dissecting it in this manner makes it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Where does the hustling stem from?

For me, hustling started at a very young age: I realised that if I brought home good marks, then I was patted on the shoulder and deemed ‘enough’ - in particular by one parent who didn’t have the capacity to demonstrate love, so this was the only twisted form of affection I received: an attagirl when the grades were good. 

And so the hustling commenced. It became a linear correlation that propelled me deeper into hustling: What you put in is what you will get out. 

So I put in and in and in. Usually I reaped the rewards. Often I thought that maybe now I will feel loved. I never did, but the hustling continued. Because maybe one day it will be enough. 

This formed an ingrained identity that if I have achievements in life, it will make me feel loved. As twisted as this may sound - I know that this resonates with millions of people out there who were led to believe that success and achievements should be where we find our true selves.

The only problem with this identity is - it’s never enough. A bottomless abyss. A never-ending hamster wheel. 

By the time that I came to the realisation that hustling should not define me, I was so stuck in the default mode of hustling, I didn’t think that it’s abnormal or out of bounds. 

Only when life brought me to a complete and utter standstill, did I understand that it’s possible (and necessary) to halt the hustling. 

To recalibrate to a new rhythm. 

To redefine what is essential and to live accordingly. 

The below Scripture became a resounding theme and called me to a place of redefining my cadence in life: 

Matt. 11:28-30 (MSG) - “Are you tired? Worn out?... Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” 

From the inside out:

Our rhythm in life and the driving forces that determine our decisions come from a place deep inside of us. If we don’t reassess and realign these driving forces on a regular basis, they can wreak havoc and recklessly lead to burnout. Over and over again. 

If you feel hurried on the inside, it will reflect on the outside. It will keep you busy. 

To step out of life defined by hustle doesn’t start with outside decisions, in the hope that it will remedy the inside fatigue.

The most powerful and sustainable way to step off the hamster wheel is to recalibrate on the inside - determining your core values, deciding to live by essentialism and realising that you are not defined by hustle. Once the inner workings are aligned and integrated, this will effortlessly spill over into outside decisions and amendments in your life. 

Suddenly it won’t make sense to fill your day from morning to night with no margin and no rest.

Suddenly you allow yourself to have a manageable schedule where you carve in time to be present with your loved ones, as well as time for your favourite hobbies and things you always push to the back burner. 

Suddenly you have time to stand still and not feel guilty when you’re doing ‘nothing’. 

Suddenly you have time to delve deeper and live a more wholesome life. 

Suddenly you have time for God and realise that nothing else matters. If you have Him, you have everything you need - everything that hustle can never produce. 

You are so much more than the hustle. 

You deserve so much more than burnout. 

The next time someone asks you how you are - I hope that ‘busy’ won’t be the first thing that comes to mind.