Breaking Free from Hustle Culture

I am so over the flex “I’m so busy”.  Pick a person at random from your contacts list, send them a text asking how they are doing and I would bet the equity in my house that their response will include the words so busy. And I don’t think anyone is lying.  I think everyone is so busy.  But is everyone enjoying this so busy aspect of our lives?  I am going to argue that we don’t, we just have a false belief that so busy is synonymous with worth, that busyness is a badge of honor, and that success is only real if it is visible to others as constant doing. Capitalism, corporations, social media platforms, marketing and many family and cultural systems all reinforce this idea. The promise is that with all this effort, all the doing, we will experience more connection, more abundance, and ultimately, of course, more happiness.

I believed this lie.  The lie that all my productivity had a destination point and at some point in the imagined future I could relax and just enjoy all the connection, abundance, and happiness I worked so hard to attain. Burnout forced me out of this lie.  As I was in the process of healing my fried nervous system, I began to notice how the endless cycle of chasing goals, the pressure to be  “doing” at all times, and the way my inner critic would erupt if I dared to rest, was a learned belief system.  It wasn’t true. It was hustle culture.

Detaching from hustle culture is a process of unlearning, a quiet rebellion against the busyness and achievement I’d been taught to value, and a dedication to developing a new way of being.  And that new way of being is as simple as understanding that we all deserve full humanity just from landing on this earth as a spritual being having this human experience.  A shift can be sensed inside when we can wholeheartedly accept our worthiness just as we are and stop chasing the carrot at the end of the stick that is never there for the taking.

Here’s what keeps me grounded and from falling back into the trap of hustle:

1. Practicing Non-Judgment

I actively stay on top of breaking the habit of constant judging and scanning for likes and dislikes. I used to be my own harshest critic, berating myself for not doing enough or comparing myself to others. Believe it or not this is unproductive, keeping you stuck in a loop of self-loathing and reactivity. By practicing non-judgment, I learned to observe my thoughts and feelings without labeling them as “good” or “bad.” This shift helps to detach from the emotional charge of self-criticism. Now, when I catch myself thinking, “I should be doing more” I pause, breathe, and remember that I am enough as I am and most often the urgency is only in my head.

2. Building Awareness

Awareness has been my greatest tool. It’s one thing to recognize that you’re trapped in a system designed to exploit you, but it’s another to notice how that system operates inside your own mind.  Meditation helped me to become the observer of my own thoughts as the neutral observer. And I started to notice the stories I told myself all seemed to revolve around scarcity, fear, and unworthiness. I became acquainted with the voice of my inner critic, and now I know that voice isn’t me. It’s a product of conditioning. Awareness allows me to question it, challenge it, and ultimately, let it pass without letting it control me.

3. Staying in Presence

This has been the hardest and most profound lesson. Hustle culture thrives on two things: regret over the past and anxiety about the future. It tells you that you should have done more yesterday and that you must do more tomorrow. Presence, true presence, cuts through that noise. By focusing on what is in front of me right now, I reclaim my peace. It’s not easy. My mind loves to dwell on past mistakes or future what ifs, but every time I return to the present moment, I remind myself that this breath, this body, this moment is all I truly have. And it is enough.

I consistently reinforce this new belief through my relationship with my cat Smokey.  He is a house cat that achieves nothing from day to day.  In fact, he moves through life as a taker.  He takes from sun when he finds the beam of sunlight to nap in.  He takes in all the variety of ways we seek to please him, the treats, the special food, the catnip and the toys.  He takes my blanket I planned on using or my lap when I might need to get up and go to the bathroom.  When he does give, in the form of love, affection and purring, it makes my heart so happy it never occurs to me that he mostly takes. Human relationships are so much more complex and challenging, but animals remind us of how easy it is to love something just by being.

I have not perfectly mastered my own disconnection to hustle cuture. I still slip. I still have days when I feel the pull to prove myself, to hustle for my worth. But I’m learning that stepping away from hustle culture isn’t about reaching some final state of enlightenment. It’s about practicing self-compassion and awareness daily. It’s about remembering that I was never broken, only misled. And once I unhooked from the hustle, I realized I have connection, abundance and happiness available to me right now, not in the imagined future.