Before the world changed in March 2020, Hustle Culture, a societal trend that promotes intense and continuous hard work aka “the grind” seemed like the only way to achieve success as a young professional. People prided themselves on balancing jobs, internships, classes, entrepreneurial feats, and other activities geared towards career advancement, while sacrificing personal successes. But when the world slowed down and people took stock of the important things—as we’ve started to come back out into the world one thing, we’re seeing less of is Hustle Culture.
With open discussions around mental health, self-care, and burnout, the idea of working now to live in the future is no longer desirable. People are working now to live now, with an emphasis on flexibility, work/life balance, and overall healthier work habits. So goodbye to Hustle Culture and hello to Break Culture. No, we’re not talking about quiet quitting, we’re talking about workers who were trying to keep up with unrealistic expectations to get ahead.
So, let’s embrace Break Culture!
- Work the hours you were hired to work. Working the hours you’ve been hired to work is fine. You don’t have to humble-brag that you worked 16-hour days.
- Embrace work/life balance. Be proud of the things you can do by having a healthy balance between work and your life outside of work. Go to your kid’s activities, have dinner with friends and family, read a book and don’t feel guilty about it.
- Invest yourself in things outside of work. Work isn’t the only valuable thing you do, relaxing is also valuable, so is exercising, spending time with friends, or even taking up a hobby. If you take the time to invest in things outside of work, research shows you’ll be happier overall.
- It’s the quality, not the quantity. Research shows that the more hours you work, the lower the quality of work you produce. Basically, when you exceed 55 hours of work a week, there’s a decline. So, if you’re not being productive by overworking, why do it at all?
- Take care of yourself. Listen to your body and know when you should take time to care for yourself. Working too much can result in anxiety, depression, and exhaustion. Take the time you need to recharge your batteries and respect yourself. Ever have an issue with and electronic—whether it’s a phone, computer, or tv? And the first thing you do to troubleshoot the problem is to unplug it? And then you plug it back in and it’s working fine? It’s the same thing here, disconnect yourself to reconnect.
Instead of working so hard to invest and find meaning in your job, find meaning in yourself by embracing Break Culture and the other things will follow.