You Don’t Have to Hustle To Win

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If you're anything like me (a person with no sense of the social construct of time), you're probably wondering WTF and HOW THE HELL IS IT ALREADY BASICALLY HALFWAY THROUGH FEBRUARY?! The good news is, we survived the holidays and hopefully our slow spa months are almost over as we bounce into spring + summer (and before you know it, another holiday season will be upon us).

Lately, I have been reflecting a lot on the speed of society vs the speed at which I want to live my life. Working at a fast pace always seemed ideal in the past… the faster I got things done, the more I checked off my list, the more productive I felt. I've come to realize my sense of urgency and need to be moving all the time was the result of a collection of coping mechanisms - ways that I was able to focus + feel like I wasn't losing hold on things. They served me when it came to being a decent enough instructor, employee and co-worker and I always thought that my productivity would mean more money, more prestige, more leverage and more happiness. But that is a lie we tell ourselves in order to survive in a society that pushes us to work harder, faster and do more than our bodies and mental health can really afford.

Bonus points to anyone who gets this reference.

One of my favorite coping mechanisms is the need for a due date to create urgency, which then provides just the right amount of dopamine for me to focus on an actual task I want to complete. However… if the due date is far away, I put it off and finish the task at the last minute. Yes, I am one of those “I work better at the last minute” people. This is not true… I actually don't work better at the last minute… but I don't work UNLESS it's the last minute, which is classic ADHD behavior FYI (the dopamine hits from that last minute rush to the finish line go POP POP! and make your brain feel reeeeal good).

Now that I don't have a job to do this for me I just create arbitrary dates for myself, and being that I have no sense of time these dates are often far too soon and require me to work nonstop on a project for days/weeks at a time. I tell myself, “you're being productive! Look at what you are creating! Look at how many things are being checked off your list!” but I actually feel like shit because I don't WANT to work constantly. That is literally why I started my own business - to get away from this feeling of overwhelm + push for productivity.

And if your response to this last statement is something like, “well too bad! when you run your own business you have to work all the time” -or- “you have to suffer to get ahead or appreciate what you have,” then keep reading because that mentality is precisely the problem.

For the last 6 months or so, I have made a conscious effort to deprogram myself from those beliefs and focus more on living in a slower, more purposeful and connected way. This has not been easy… it is actually a lot of fucking work, and like all healing it is not linear. The month of December when I stepped away from social media was part of this effort and it was absolutely terrifying… but it was also liberating to not feel like I had to work faster to keep up with anyone else. And then when I went back, I felt that push again to post post post or else I might fall behind. And fall behind from what?? I don't answer to anyone by myself. What does it matter when I get things done? That has been a total mind fuck.

I recently created a free offering that I had on my to-do list forever. I wanted to create content focusing on specific, detailed muscles and manipulations instead of routines + protocols to replace what I currently had in my online courses. So, going back to my old ways, I decided to just jump in and set a date to start this project. And - THIS WAS MY GRAND IDEA - by allowing people to sign up for free and promising to deliver one a day, I essentially created an accountability model for myself to get this shit done. Here is the thing… it was really fun to do and I am glad I got the work done, but I never actually finished because I GOT SO FREAKING TIRED. I was on my computer for hours at a time every few days editing, adding video, trying to come up with fun shit to say, stressed because #accountability and also because I STILL WORK FULL TIME AND I DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF TIME SO I DIDN’T ACTUALLY REALIZE I DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO DO THIS + BE A FUNCTIONAL HUMAN MOTHER, FRIEND, EMPLOYEE, ETC. And here is the thing… I felt like shit that I didn’t finish, I am still beating myself up about it. That’s the mind fuck - no one actually told me I had to do this, and I don’t think most of you realized I didn’t finish or send out the last 4 days.

I hustle-cultured my own damn self.

One of the hardest things about deprogramming from the way our capitalist society tells us to live is that EVERYONE IS SO DEEP IN IT. It's so hard to even talk to people about how I don't want to “hustle” or use extractive means of making money because they can't see anything other than how they are doing things. It makes sense, in order to justify how each of us lives our life we project our choices onto others… we need to make things we didn't choose feel wrong in order to make our choices feel right in our minds. And for transparency, maybe I am doing that now but my goal is not to shame anyone for their choices. You do you, boo. Some of the things I hear, for example, are telling another business owner you don't want to work every day or take clients all day or answer messages in the middle of the night, and they will tell you that you HAVE to because that is how you get ahead in your business. But it's not true.

Guess what? YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORK 24/7.

You don’t have to hustle all the time. It is ok to slow down.

We don't need to run our businesses the way they have always been run in order to be successful… there are other ways of doing things. Kinder, gentler, more ethical ways that are better for your nervous system and more sustainable. There are plenty of business models that challenge capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy and benefit the community rather than trying to extract from it. And the thing about having your own business is that YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. You don’t need to take MORE clients to make more money if you are tired, you don’t need to do services you don’t want to do and you don’t need to glorify estheticians who make 6 figures hustling themselves to death because it’s actually kind of gross (and stereotypically American) to brag about overworking. Obviously, you need to live - we all need money to live - but there is a difference between surviving and thriving.

If you don't slow yourself down… the universe will do it for you.

Ever wonder why whenever you are feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency to be somewhere or do something, that seems to be the time when there is more traffic blocking you from your destination? This happens to me whenever I am running late… and now, when I get stuck at ALL the red lights on the days I left for work too late (because that is always when it happens), I try not to let my nervous system drop into mobilizing states that drive anxiety and road rage. I breath and remind myself the universe WANTS me to slow down, and I just let it be.

And what about the pandemic?? Talk about the universe forcing us to slow down… I know I am not the only one that feels like I was dropped out of the freaking Matrix in March 2020 and forced to re-evaluate everything I thought about my identity, my relationships and how I was living my life. We entered into a completely different reality. And I don’t know about you, but this is when I realized my work hard, never sleep, never see my family, never have time for self-care identity of “really good, really productive esthetics instructor” was destroying my nervous system and my health. I just couldn’t do it anymore. So many people re-invented themselves during the pandemic, and it makes total sense - once you remove yourself from a situation that was no longer serving you and you can see it from a different lens, going back to it is torture. The most common thing I hear from people on this subject is they can’t imagine long drives to work anymore, long hours in an office, hustling for someone else, working for companies they hate or bosses they hate and that they won’t continue to do it for low wages. They found new jobs or started businesses that allow them to work ethically and honor the values of their newly actualized identity.

I'm sure many of you have experienced that if you are going too hard, your body will tell you to slow down with pain + disease. We are taught, thanks to hustle culture, to avoid that pain. Pretend it doesn't exist. Keep working through it, keep suffering, otherwise you won't get ahead in life. Avoidance leads to disconnection… we disconnect from our bodies and our minds to dissociate from our suffering and when we do this, we can not help but disconnect from the people around us. This disconnection begins to happen the second your nervous system jumps down the ladder from a safe and social state to fight, flight or shut down. And your nervous system isn’t rationalizing the cues it is neurocepting either… it will just make the shift once the body perceives you are not safe (i.e. being in physical pain from working long hours, being tired, being treated like shit by your employer, literally anything to do with finances, grief, hunger, fear, trauma, being sick or being terrified of getting sick).

Where I am going with all of this is that we don't HAVE to be this way, and if we want to be healthy in all areas of our mind, body and spirit (and in community with others) we really can't afford to keep pushing ourselves so hard.

At the end of our lives, what do you think we will regret more - that we didn't work hard enough, or that we didn't slow down enough to connect with the world around us? I have a feeling it would be the latter.

If you have kids, or have lost someone close to you, you have felt that overwhelming sense that life moves too fast and you wish you had slowed down to enjoy moments more fully. You would likely give anything to go back and really live in those moments of connection. Moments of eye contact, laughter, sadness, a gentle touch, shared experiences…. moments of knowing others in ways that transcend our perceptions of time + space. This is what being a human is all about.

I think we owe it to ourselves + all those around us (our families, friends, clients, employees, co-workers, etc) to slow down and honor our need as humans to connect with other humans. To me, this is the key to healing after the trauma of 2020-2021 and moving forward through a pandemic that doesn't seem to want to end. Connection is the key building a strong business, one that is client-focused and truly healing on a holistic level. Connecting with and knowing yourself is the only way to sense when the path you are on feels good or is one of pain and suffering. And to truly connect, we need to work more slowly and be more gentle with ourselves + others. Practice self-compassion and nervous system regulation.

This can only happen when we step up and say “F^$% YOU” to hustle culture. If we don’t stop trying to fight our way through life (and therefore, our treatments) as fast as possible, the universe will step in and shut us down. Maybe it will be the end of your business, maybe your health will suffer… is it really worth it? At the end of the day, you get to choose your reality. So you can pop back into the Matrix, or break free and live in those moments of connection. It’s up to you.