Hustle culture is often depicted as working beyond the usual 9-to-5 and working like a dog until you get what you want. Most of the time, they end up burning out and losing inspiration on their side hustle. It’s no wonder many individuals are criticizing this movement. But is it as bad as it seems?
As a business owner running 5 different side hustles on the sideline, I will share my take on why I love the hustle culture and believe it is badly misrepresented. Overall, you will learn the perspective I have learned from working with multiple 6–8 figure business owners so you can start thinking for yourself what is the right way to make money. FYI, hustling won’t get you there!
How Hustle Culture Started
Not sure how the hustle culture movement started. For myself, I remember working towards the FIRE Movement aka. the financially independent retire early lifestyle. Unlike hustle culture, the FIRE movement focuses on learning, improving, and saving as much as possible to not be dependent on money. The goal is to have enough saved up and invested so that the payout would be equal to or more than the individual monthly salary.
The hustle culture takes this movement to an extreme by forcing themselves to work more to achieve greater things in life early. They do that by working longer hours, building up their side hustles, and finding the best possible way to save and invest to financially retire faster.
The Problems
As mentioned in the beginning, the problem with hustle culture is that it often leads to burnout and losing inspiration for many individuals.
I get it! When I first started with my goal to get financial freedom, I was like everyone else. The goal was the dream and everyone was simply chasing it. The problem is they don’t realize how far or how long it takes to get to the goal.
Rome wasn’t build in a day
Great businesses, side hustles, and even your investment take years to cultivate and grow. It took me more than 6 years to quit my job and work as a digital nomad. Even so, I’m not close to saying that I can forever not work my entire life and I wouldn’t want that either.
We get influenced by Youtubers and influencers easily. The fake lifestyle of working very little and getting paid a 6-figure to 8-figure income is a dream that most people will never be able to achieve. But the dream of it does envy people to want to work their way towards that goal.
Hustling the only way up?
With that dream of being rich in mind. Many hustlers begin their lifelong addiction to working, adding more hours to work in their life from the norm. As they do that for 1 month, 6 months, or probably even a year. They will realize that it’s not easy at all. As they continue to work on their side hustle with really nothing much to show for it, they begin to lose hope.
I get it!
The problem with all these “fancy dreams” is that we never actually plan for ourselves how we are going to get there.
When we enjoy the walk more than the goal itself. The goal would just be a product of the goal.
So start small. I remember telling myself I wanted to be able to make $100 business from my client, and 2 months later, I got the deal. As it slowly grows, I’ve learned to build myself smaller and smaller goals to reach the “dream” people aspire to reach.
Hustle comfortably
Burnout happens all the time when we feel uninspired after a long day of work. The best way to overcome it is to tackle those smaller goals you had in place. Also, taking a break from hustling every once in a while to recharge yourself by going out with friends and family wouldn’t be such a bad thing either. Maybe you would even feel more productive afterward!
I want to escape the dollar!
Who doesn’t, right?
Escaping from the need to make money is probably one of the most liberating achievements you can get. So what’s the best way to get it?
One answer: Be valuable
A business owner can make $100,000 in a month for 8 hours of work on weekdays while a doctor could be making the same amount for 9 hours of work for 6 days. Both of them have equal 24 hours a day but the value of the business owner’s time is higher.
So what are you going to do? Work long hours?
Hustling isn’t going to get you there by working longer hours. Your time is valuable and you need to find ways to make it worth more. So be inspired to learn and build stuff!
Why do some people make more money?
Take this time to ask your why? How are this people making more money than I do?
You need to know why and learn to copy them. Everyone has 24 hours but what makes his 24 hours more valuable than yours?
Maybe he knows more, his experience, his network, or maybe just lucky?
If you are working in a similar field, find and learn his way of making money, you could probably learn a thing or two.
The answer you will get most of the time is knowledge. The more you know, the more you can provide value. For example, 500-word content could be written by a beginner. But what stands out from a pro to a beginner is the quality of the work.
Then how do I get to become a pro so that I can charge more for my time?
Well, this is where hustle culture got right!
What do you need to Hustle On?
To learn to provide quality work. You first have to work on making mistakes, the best way to do that is by improving by 1% every day.
Like starting a writing side hustle on Medium, to get followers, you first need to provide abundant information. During this stage, many people will criticize you or give you constructive feedback, whatever way you look at it, think of it as a learning opportunity. It’s okay to be making mistakes, just be willing to stand back up on your feet and push on.
There’s is no way you can make a 6-figure business without meeting some troubles along the way. The best businesses are the ones that have faced multiple roadblocks along the way and found ways for themselves to get over them.
Write more, make more mistakes, and improve your delivery.
What to do with the money as you hustle?
The hustle culture focuses on saving and investing every cent into the stock market.
Don’t make that mistake!
If you want to make more money, you need to find ways to up your skill. That way you become more valuable. You can do that by either going to courses or buying an E-book which I have my own below!
How much to invest in yourself? That depends on whether you feel there is more opportunity for you to make more money through your business.
Financial freedom is not sexy
We often depict financial freedom as having a nice fancy car, big houses, luxury items, and people just throwing money. That’s all BS!
The real financial freedom is quiet.
Often depicted as an old man sitting by the beach enjoying their retirement. They are not wrong! When we climb our way to financial freedom by ourselves, we will realize the importance of proper spending, saving, and investing habits that make us not want to spend our money unnecessarily.
