Work a full-time job. Find a side hustle. Speak at events. Be a supermom. Have the perfect house. Save your money. Drink plenty of water. Create the perfect Insta grid. Volunteer. Stay on trend. Get rich.

Are you “failing” in any of these areas? Work harder. Stay up later. No excuses, ladies– Hustle.

Does this sound familiar? If we were all honest, I bet we would agree that we feel like we’re supposed to be doing all of this. It’s not enough for us to be doing well in one area; we want to be good in every area of our lives. All of the time.

This sounds good in theory, but the truth is, we’re tired. Tired of being everything to everyone, tired of feeling like we always have to say “yes,” tired of hustling to the point of breaking. The “hustle culture” that has been portrayed on social media and throughout history has crippled us, ladies. Because instead of thriving and reaching our full potential, we are experiencing severe burnout.

Burnout. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all experienced it. We’ve all felt the effects of it. We know burnout. But my question to you is… why are we doing it?

Think back to a time in your life that you were not burned out. You may have to go back quite a ways in your memory, but it’s there. For me, this was in college. I played basketball for the University of Arkansas, and I hustled hard on the court, dove on the floor and gave it my all…for 40 minutes. I also went to class, hung out with friends, went to parties. and SLEPT (a lot) in college. I don’t remember feeling like I had to do all the things or hustle 24/7 then. I just had to go to practice and class and show up on time.

Today, I feel inundated with messaging that tells me I’m just not doing enough.

Something about getting older can change our mindset and perspective. We used to live simply, fulfilling our responsibilities, but having fun and resting at the same time. What happened? The hustle culture got ahold of us, and we became its prey.

Let’s go back in history, shall we?

This, my friends, started long before any of us stepped into our hustle shoes.

Going back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the only “hustle” that existed was working for survival. People tended the land for food, for water, for clothes, for shelter, for nutrients… it was a harsh and exhausting way of life, but it was their reality. Fast forward hundreds of years to the Industrial Revolution, where innovation made production increase tenfold. In other words, human civilization as we know it started to get easier. We had more time on our hands! No more working from sunrise to sunset. 

Economists even worried about all the free time we would have. What would we do with all the free time we would suddenly have thanks to new technology? But you know what’s crazy? It didn’t happen like that. We filled our time with more work and never stopped.

Fast forward a little bit more to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, free time was equated with unemployment and irresponsibility. If you were not applying to jobs, standing in bread lines, or fighting for resources, you and your family were probably suffering greatly.

While we aren’t suffering the way people did during the Great Depression, we never dropped the mindset. We work like we have to fight for resources, like our absolute livelihood depends on pure hustle, like if we have free time, we too are failing our families.

We are killing ourselves for resources and finances we (most likely) already have. 

If most of us were honest with ourselves, we would realize we are hustling and burning out for little payoff.

Why are we doing this?

So, back to my question earlier…why are we doing this to ourselves? When did we get so conned into thinking that hustling to the point of breaking was the only path to success? Why are we so enamored with sparkly, social media messages that are really toxic? Why friends, are we lying to each other about being so busy all the time?

I think it’s because we’ve been trained and conditioned to work until our wheels fall off. We watched other women do it and somewhere along the way, we decided that we need to do it as well.

Reject the hustle.

I’M DONE WITH THE HUSTLE.  I am on a mission to change my way of thinking about this subject– we do not need to hustle until we burn out just to get ahead or be better, smarter, richer…

I can assure you, there are better ways to achieve your goals and dreams. This hustle culture is toxic. We lose sleep, we eat poorly, and we don’t make time for meaningful relationships because we are out hustling for something we probably don’t even want if we’re honest with ourselves!

No, seriously. Reject the hustle!

So, join me as I choose to work smarter, not harder. As I choose rest. As I say “no.” As I thrive in a few areas while letting go of others. As I educate my fellow women to say, “Reject the Hustle!”

This is my series of blog posts called “Reject the Hustle” with information on why this toxic mentality is bad for us. We’ll talk about how we can say “no” to things we don’t want in our lives and “yes” to all the things that bring us joy.

We’ll be exploring examples of people saying no to the hustle and spending more time with family, on self care, or just doing absolutely nothing at all. We’ll also share some great articles that encourage us all slow down, breathe in and rest.

Will you take the pledge?