Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is nothing at all.
Hustle culture tells us otherwise.
Hustle culture says:
- Beat the rest by outworking the rest.
- Give 110% all of the time—no days off.
- There will be plenty of time to sleep when you die.
But, what hustle culture fails to tell us is:
- Burnout is real.
- If we don’t take optional rests, we’ll experience forced shutdowns.
- 100% can only ever come after a full charge. What might feel like your 100% might actually only be your 48% max because your battery is drained.
- Consistency is more important than intensity. And trying to consistently give more than your 100% max effort on a daily basis is about as asinine as trying to sprint a marathon.
- Sleep now or die sooner.
Turn down the volume on hustle culture. Turn up the volume on the whispers of your body.
If there’s anything you should prioritize in the new year that will best help you reach your goals, it should be more blocks of nothing.
Space where you can deliberately recharge, check in with your body, and adjust your pace.
Not more ways you can work at a suboptimal levels for the sake of getting diminishing returns only to end up rebounding back to where you originally started.
No. This year, don’t add more hustle to your resolutions—add un-hustle.