That hustle culture is dying might be a bit of an overstatement. It’s not likely to completely disappear, but there has definitely been a marked decline in the...
That hustle culture is dying might be a bit of an overstatement. It’s not likely to completely disappear, but there has definitely been a marked decline in the promotion of and support for hustle culture. This trend is interesting to us, since we’re all about pursuing our dreams relentlessly. Because of this, we’re going to share some of our thoughts about hustle culture and it’s decline.
In case you don’t know what “hustle culture” is, it’s best defined as a view that glorifies constant work, extreme ambition and the relentless pursuit of one’s ambition. Working until you’re dead to reach your goals, even at the expense of other parts of your life is part of the “hustle culture” viewpoint. That’s why slogans like “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” or “can’t stop; won’t stop” are staples of this movement.
You might think, considering our dedication to achieving dreams, that we’re completely in favour of it, but you’ll see that our position is a bit more nuanced than this.
There are many reasons why hustle culture is dying, one of them simply being that ideas shift with time because all sorts of things happen that change the landscape and affect people’s views on things. One obvious event that had a significant impact on hustle culture was the COVID-19 pandemic. The world shutting down and the subsequent economic turmoil changed things for a lot of people. But let’s set COVID-19 aside, because none of us really want to go back to that time.
As we said, there are many reasons for the decline of hustle culture, but we think the following four are pretty big factors in it:
Some workplaces have such unreasonable expectations and demands, with an expectation that every employee goes above and beyond by a considerable margin, that it causes chronic stress and fatigue amongst its employees. This is “burnout culture” and it is demoralising.
This is not hustle culture, and it’s the kind of toxic work environment that asks you to sacrifice yourself for the good of the company or business without necessarily taking you towards your own goals. However, because it also calls for sacrifice and constant work, it is confused with hustle culture. This makes people suspicious of encouragement to push past their limits to achieve some sort of goal. It’s a reason that people quiet quit and reject the
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Another reason that people give up on hustle culture is that they look at their goals and realise that they are not meaningful, or achieve a goal, but feel no satisfaction from it.
Goals are central to hustle culture, and without meaningful goals, the grind isn’t worth it. But priorities change over time, and the things you come to value aren’t necessarily what you want down the line. Apart from that, it turns out that the journey is often what people get meaning from rather than achieving the goal.
Our response to this is to look beyond the hustle. We have our goals, and we think you should have your goals. And you should work incredibly hard towards them, but we also think that you should have a larger vision for your life that all your career goals, workout goals, etc. fit into. That actually takes us beyond hustle culture and transforms the hustle into a tool that works for us rather than control us.
Another factor in the decline of hustle culture is the need and desire for balance in life. Hustle culture seems to make everything about work, work, work, and that can be exhausting. Sometimes you just want to sit back and take a day off. But hustle culture says that if you take a day off, you’re going backwards and a competitor is going to eat your lunch.
Now, we’ll be up front and say that we don’t think that true balance is possible. Something always falls through the cracks. But we do acknowledge that pure hustle is going to burn you out and will mean that you will miss out on things that you might regret. We also think that investing into other parts of your life is worth it.
Another important reason for the death of hustle culture is a gradual decline of optimism. This is not the only reason, but it certainly has had an effect on hustle culture. A philosophy like hustle culture is based on the belief that you can overcome obstacles and achieve success through sheer bloody-minded effort, and that’s an inherently optimistic view that screams, “I can do it!” However, if you stop believing that the field is fair or that the game of life will let you win, there’s no longer any incentive to set and chase goals because these things become impossibilities. The idea that there is little chance of success because the system is rigged against normal people is increasingly common, and it’s a motivation killer
So is the death of hustle culture a bad thing? And is hustle culture a bad thing?
To be honest, we’re not overly concerned with either question. There are good parts to hustle culture and bad parts. It doesn’t seem to be a way that you can live your whole life, and if people give up on it, that’s irrelevant to the people who decide to embrace hustle culture.
What we’re more interested in is the Dream Runner way.
What’s that, you ask?
It’s the relentless pursuit of your goals – meaningful goals. It’s about encouraging and empowering others to chase their dreams, too. But it’s also about doing this in a sustainable and intelligent way.
We want success and we want to hear about your successes, but we also want our and your lives to be good. We want the Dream Runner clan to look back at their lives in ten years’ time and feel the warm glow of satisfaction, as well as the sustainable hunger to reach for more sustainable goals.
And that, we think is the real answer.
