It’s all too easy to get swept away in the entrepreneurial mantra’s of the day. “Hustle!” is sold to us by influencers that don’t always tell the full story. The dangers of going full-time full-throttle are conveniently left out, leading to serious consequences.
Yes, you need to hustle if you want to build a successful business. It’s imperative, and there’s no substitute for it. Period.
No one cares about your business as much as you do, and no one will work as hard for it as you will. You simply must hustle if your ideas will ever turn into businesses, and if those businesses will ever turn into profit centers that fuel your dream life. Hustling is necessary.
But there’s a limit.
Burnout is real, and if you get there, you’re going to do your business (and yourself) more harm than you may realize.
When you’re burnt out, you can’t think as clearly. You won’t see the big picture, which can hurt your long term strategic goals. Plus, you won’t be able to do the daily work that drives goals you already set out for yourself.
That’s a double edged sword right there: Death to the long term, and death in the short term.
All because you thought that you can hustle all your problems away…
The truth about hustling is surprisingly simple: When you have a solid plan, hustle to implement it.
That’s it.
If there’s no plan, you need one. Without it, your hustle is akin to a hamster on a wheel. You’re moving as fast as you can, but accomplishing nothing.
To get the plan, your mind has to be fresh. You have to be able to think clearly from a calm place. You must be able to assess reality as it truly is, not through biases and blinders.
If you’re burnt, it ain’t happening.
Thankfully, it’s rather easy to keep the hustle going long term with one simple hack.
Get A Hobby
With something as simple and innocuous as a hobby, you can detach for a while. You can free your mind up for a bit, giving it space to solve your bigger problems. You can take tension out of your body, letting you push hard when you truly need it.
How often, and how long you detach, is up to you.
Maybe it’s a few hours a day every day. Maybe it’s one day a week. Maybe it’s Friday afternoons. Whatever it is, find out what you personally need and schedule it in.
Build it into your schedule. Build it into your routine, and protect it ruthlessly.
It doesn’t matter what your hobby is either. It could be painting. It could be running. It could be swimming. Or lifting weights. Or bonsai trees. Hiking, playing guitar, martial arts, woodworking… anything that helps you empty your mind and focus on a single task at hand.
Without that down time that your hobby provides, you can fall prey to the hamster wheel of business death. You can work and work and work, with no clear target in mind, right up until you go broke or worse, give up on your dreams.
Listen To Yourself
If you’ve got a clear vision of where you want to go, and what milestones you need to hit to get there, feel free to hustle. As soon as you feel yourself getting less productive than normal, or if you feel yourself struggling to get through a task you should enjoy, STOP.
Take the time needed to retreat into your hobby of choice, and get yourself back to center.
Ultimately, if you build your routine around hustle-on and hustle-off mode, you should be able to get move the needle farther than you ever thought possible, and feel great while doing it.