5 Hidden Costs of Hustle Culture
Written by
Martin Dasko
Edited by
Cory Dudak
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When you scroll through social media, you’ll likely see content about hustling and working hard. While some of the messaging and themes in this space have a good intention, the harsh reality is that you can get caught up in a toxic hustle culture without even realizing it.
Entrepreneur Roxanne Merket recently published a Medium post that highlighted and explored the red flags to look out for while navigating hustle culture. Merket examined the hidden costs that could impact you, especially if you feel pressured to work longer hours.
1. You Burn Out
You could burn yourself out if you constantly feel pressured to work on something. Burning out could leave you emotionally exhausted and unable to be productive, preventing you from potentially earning a living. You don’t want to burn out and miss opportunities in the future because you got caught up and burned out by hustle culture. Giving yourself space for self-care and relaxation, if at the very least to recharge your batteries to continue the hustle, is a necessity.
2. You Have a Poor Work-Life Balance
Getting swept up in hustle culture could lead to a terrible work-life balance, increasing feelings of loneliness and a deteriorating personal life. This poor work-life balance could also cost you deeply if you end up neglecting relationships. If you don’t make time for your friends or partner, you could risk losing them. You don’t want hustle culture to ruin your personal relationships that took years to build. Making space for your personal life should always be a priority.
3. You’re Not Taking Your Mental Health Seriously
The toxic hustle culture doesn’t pay much attention to mental health. There can be hidden costs such as poor sleep, increased anxiety/depression and the inability to find joy. When you don’t make your mental health a priority, you could find yourself feeling down and unable to get anything done in the future.
4. You Feel the Need for Toxic Productivity
Your work quality will suffer when you feel the urge to push yourself to be productive when you simply don’t have it in you. This is another hidden cost of hustle culture — when you force yourself to be excessively productive, you could set an unrealistic standard that you can’t keep up with. You’ll eventually burn out and feel guilty about your lack of progress.
5. You Have Unhealthy Habits
When you become so busy that you don’t have the time or energy to focus on your positive habits, you’ll develop unhealthy ones. Hustle culture can lead to poor sleep, terrible nutrition and a lack of movement. In the end, you could have less energy since you’re sleep-deprived, poorly nourished,and not exercising. These unhealthy habits will create possible health issues in the future, which could also come with a hefty medical bill one day if you don’t find a balance within hustle culture that allows for self-care.
Bottom Line
What can you do if you’ve been a victim of hustle culture? Merket recommends that you choose one of the options below to focus on:
Improve your work-life balance.
Find ways to spend time on your personal life so that you’re not always working. There’s more to life than forcing yourself to stay busy.
Make self-care a necessity.
Instead of treating self-care as optional or a luxury, treat it as mandatory. You need to find time for yourself to slow down, to relax, to treat yourself.
Take breaks whenever you can find time.
It’s essential that you find time for breaks so that you don’t burn out. When you burn out, you become completely unproductive, which ends up hurting you even more in the long run.
You don’t have to feel the pressure to be on constantly. If you’ve been caught up in toxic hustle culture, it’s critical to remember that there are ways to escape and find balance.
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