Caught Up in The Hustle? Pros and Cons of Hustle Culture
Is “hustling” just another term for overworking? While buying into the promise of success if we work hard, many of us may find ourselves suffering from feelings of fatigue or inadequacy due to hustle culture - a culture of intensely hard work that often demands sacrifices. Yet online, we see many examples of success which claim to be born out of the hustle. Today, let’s talk about the pros and cons of hustle culture.
Hustle, defined as a state of great activity, is colloquially used most frequently online to describe hard work. In our era that calls for self-improvement on social media, the terms “hustle” and “hustling” are often thrown around. A quick scroll through social media will bring up photos and videos of people working hard, juggling multiple jobs and businesses, burning the midnight oil in the name of “hustling”, alongside videos of those who have claimed to achieve financial success after hustling. Used to describe a culture of working at high intensity, hustle culture permeates our lives now, luring us with the promise of success if we lose ourselves in our work.
1. Motivation
One benefit of hustle culture can be its ability to create drive. Surrounded by people online our age whom we relate to and seeing them work hard gives us the impetus to reflect on ourselves and to be inspired to work as hard as them - or even harder - in order to achieve success. When we see others’ labour bear fruit, it can often be a good motivator to incentivise us to get started on whatever we’ve always wanted to do.
However, while a healthy level of motivation is good to give us all the push we might need, the peer pressure resulting from hustle culture can also lead to adverse results.
2. Toxic Competitivity
It’s easy to feel like one is losing out in the rat race when all we seem to see are the successes of others posted online or relayed to us. As algorithms on social platforms push out more and more success stories as a result of hustle culture for us to view, it can easily incite feelings of inadequacy and hatred in us, fuelled by the perceived need to match up to or surpass others. Remember that all you see online is a curated highlight reel. Success comes in different forms and at different times for everyone. No two journeys are the same and feeling a healthy dose of competition can be useful to motivate you, but be careful not to allow the feeling of competition to spiral out of control.
3. Burnout
While hustle culture celebrates the act of working hard, it can be easy to overdo it in an attempt to get results faster or to achieve more. At times, people end up glorifying workaholism and the act of overworking in the name of hustle culture. It is important to maintain a clear idea of your limits and what some non-compromisable elements are to you. For example, sleep should not be forgone in the name of working for potential success and meals should not be skipped just to squeeze out minutes more to work. The widespread use of the phrase “hustle culture” and the celebration of extremely intense work can therefore be dangerous if bought into completely and if one were to work without considering their mental and physical health at all. Success should not come at the expense of health, and work should be able to coexist with our daily activities and leisure ones.
At BCD, we work hard. But we also know when to draw the line to relax, recharge and spend time with ourselves and our loved ones. Should you be interested to hear more about what we do, feel free to contact us. At BCD, our focus is YOU.
