Quitting the Workaholic Mentality & Why the Hustle Culture is Toxic
Disclaimer: This is an opinion editorial.
Work, work, work, work.
Throughout my 20s and young professional life, I’ve met people from all walks of life with different goals and aspirations. Some do what they love, while some do what is best for their careers in order to reach their goals.
I find that a lot of my close friendships are genuine, however, in my experiences, the genuine ones are always constantly involved with their work. I’m actually guilty of being a workaholic, a person who is addicted to working. I do the absolute most with my career–I’m a freelance journalist, model, full-time graduate student AND full-time employee. I love being addicted to working for some odd reason. Maybe it’s because I love making my own money, I love being creative with my own work or I love focusing on the end result/reward. Or, perhaps, I love being able to distract myself from personal issues and put my stressors into what I do.
Maybe it’s all of these reasons?
I reached out to the former editor-in-chief of the Mace and Crown Student News Publication at Old Dominion University and my former mentor, Brooke Nicholson. This chick is on a roll with many occupations. She works three jobs around 60 hours weekly, with weekends sometimes included. Nicholson has two part-time jobs–one with a video gaming agency and a PR/marketing agency, and a full-time position as technical and proposal writer with a government contracting agency. Her career goal is to become a PR or marketing professional within the gaming industry.
In fact, it was absolutely difficult for me to get a hold of her due to our schedule conflicts, as well as her having different meetings, project deadlines and so forth. Many close friends see Nicholson as a workaholic juggling three jobs and barely having time for her personal life. However, she said she personally doesn’t think so.
“Not that I like to overwork myself, but I’ve had this one goal for a really, really long time to end up at a big gaming publisher or a company, in PR and marketing and that has been my only goal for I would say, seven years now,” she said. “I think it’s normal, I’ve lived this life for about three years and I’m just kind of used to it, but other people from an outside perspective would say, ‘damn, you work a lot.’”
Of course, Nicholson absolutely loves what she does. She said that she’s able to work her 9-to-5 job, but then once the day is up, she still has pockets of time to focus on her part-time jobs as a PR/marketing person for her career in gaming. Her employers know about her three occupations. While they were shocked, they’ve remained fully supportive of Nicholson’s ambitions.
But, how does this chick do it without going insane?!
“I think a lot of people would consider me a workaholic, but I kind of don’t, just because I know I’m a very organized person and I can manage my time super well,” Nicholson said. “My day kind of ends at five or six, minus a few meetings in the afternoons for a couple of days in the week. But, other than that, I can still hang out with friends after work, I can still hang out with my boyfriend, I can still go out and do things on the weekends and a lot of my work isn’t eating up my free time.”
While Nicholson does manage her time well by allowing herself to be well-rounded in her career, the former Mace and Crown editor-in-chief also said this lifestyle is not for everyone.
““If you don't already possess specific traits like time management, extreme organization and being prepared for anything, you will fall apart very quickly,” Nicholson emphasized. “Having the can-do attitude and career centered mindset really sets you apart to be able to work multiple jobs, but it's still important to dictate when you're doing too much and recognizing burnout, which is tough for me to acknowledge within myself sometimes.”
What is the “Hustle Culture?”
Hustle culture is an idea one should always be working hard to achieve success. This hustle can go towards anything: career, health and fitness, job promotion or starting a business.
Workaholism and the hustle culture often correlate to one another because it focuses primarily on working hard–obviously. They also focus more on the “self,” and individualism.
The City University of New York (CUNY) did research by surveying a group of individuals working part and full-time hours. Their data shows that around 55% of respondents view hustle as a positive connotation and are likely to complete work-related tasks outside of their work setting. However, 74% also view hustle with a negative connotation and are not at all likely to complete work assignments outside of their work environment.
While the CUNY research states a good chunk of employees view the word ‘hustle’ as negative, it all truly lies with how the employers treat their employees.
“Employees can experience different facets of hustle culture based on the availability of resources and support provided at their place of employment,” the research concluded. “Further, it is likely that employees who are recently starting their careers, such as those in our sample size, might require more resources and support due to lack of professional exposure.”
But…Why is the Hustle Culture So Toxic?
The culture is toxic for many reasons: employees often decrease in productivity, deteriorate in their mental or physical well-being and often lose quality sleep because of hustling.
“People get burnt out,” Nicholson said. “I think that it’s so toxic because then people don’t have time for extracurricular activities or time to do things that they want to do. The only thing that they want to think about is, ‘oh my god, I just have to work and that’s the only thing on my mind is work.’”
Nicholson also believes another contributing factor to the toxicity of the hustle culture is being in a work environment that does not promote work-life boundaries.
“I do believe being in the wrong work environment contributes to being burnt out and that toxic [work] culture,” said Nicholson. “In my case, there are work environments that are not so lenient or flexible to someone’s personal life or personal schedule and expect them to be in the office five days a week, put in overtime and they expect them to not take any vacations.”
“Us as humans, we can’t do that, but then, if we don’t do that, then we’re seen as being lazy,” she also said. “That’s not being lazy, we’re just human beings. We can’t do this all the time and put in 150 percent.”
The CUNY research also stated that early career professionals would benefit from leaders who divide their communication for the needs of each individual employee.
“These findings are an essential observation for leaders, specifically transformational leaders, to adopt individualized consideration under their leadership styles,” the research also concluded. “The variation of responses we collected in this study indicates that employees would benefit from open communication regarding role expectations, professional performance, and mental health.”
Let’s Quit Being a Workaholic, Kids.
While the workaholic in me wants to say a hard, “NO,” the healing part of me accepted the fact that in order to do well in your work, you must focus on one step at a time and be in a work environment that genuinely appreciates the value of work-life balance.
In fact, a Harvard Business Review article by psychologist and contributor, Alice Boyes, stated in order to resist the pressure of overworking is knowing that it does not always correlate to success.
“This social pressure will activate your anxiety, with all the attendant emotional and physical reactions,” said Boyes.
Of course, coping with a workaholic addiction and rejecting the hustle culture is not going to happen overnight. But, some things I have learned to cope with being a workaholic is through therapy and being more aware of my problems than to brush them under the rug. Despite myself being a part of this hustle culture, I try to not let it affect me by having the constant ‘success’ mentality. I have failed in my career many, MANY times because I barely considered or cared for the risks of goal-making until now. People will fail at trying to attain a goal; it’s life, what can you say?
Despite the heavy workload Nicholson does face on a daily basis, her hard work is paying off.
“I’ve been handed a lot of really great opportunities, and I’m so thrilled about that, so that goal is looking like it could come sooner rather than later,” she said.
