why more is not more.
I have many hustle posters. I love them, or I used to think I loved them. Growing up my parents worked super hard and instilled the hustle value in me and my siblings. “Grit your teeth and get through it” was commonly used around our house.
For my parents—the hard work mostly paid off. They are happy and earned all the wonderful things they have. But they sacrificed a lot. A lot.
For me, it was heart-breaking to find myself in my mid-30s wondering why I was so tired, having a full-time job, a full-time business, and teaching 7 yoga classes a week. Oh, the hustle. I wanted it to be the thing that propelled me forward. I wanted to say yes to every opportunity, I wanted to have the coolest clients in-house and on my freelance roster. Sometimes I wonder how people didn’t pass out in my yoga classes. I was so hard on everyone. Including myself.
But for what?
Last year broke me in half. Personally, emotionally, financially, and physically.
I don’t want to hustle anymore. I don’t want to be too tired for a meeting, apologizing for forgetting things and living in a perpetual state of catch up. I want to spend the year to realign with what’s most important in my career and life, and home, and keep peeling away the layers that are just extra for the sake of extra.
If you work 80 hours a week in and on your business and barely have time for friends, family, dinner or a yoga class—are you running, owning or working in a sustainable business or do you just have a job? And if you don’t own or run a biz, do you hustle with kids, activities, school board things? The concept is not specific to business owners…
Consider the implications of what makes you and your talents so damn brilliant. Consider why you are hustling. Don’t get me wrong, I want money, too. I also want to travel. I want more exquisite relationships, life experiences, more love. But to achieve it I also want to build a brand that takes the utmost care of you, no missed deadlines and no emails post 6 pm.
More is not more. More spreads you thin, more makes you forget stuff, more doesn’t allow you to savor your morning coffee, hold that hug longer, watch the clouds, or tune into your breath. It’s a mindset shift we have to make and let me tell you, friend, when you are not sitting with more, it’s fucking ugly. You see your true self, virtues, failures, triumphs in one lumpy mess. If you can stay to clean up why you thought busier was better (I’m suggesting here that busy is a way to deal with things that are imperfect in our lives) you may find some gems in the process. More is a coverup, a buffer, a crutch.
“Don’t be a busy fool” I read somewhere once. You do not need to be all things to all people. You do not need to read and respond to every email immediately to do your job right. Look inside, take a minute to consider your value, your worth, why you hustle, and why you want more. Let me know what you dig up.