How Hustle Culture May Hurt Your Career

You aren’t a machine, so why should you work like one? As it turns out, more and more people are starting to agree with that, which is why they’re turning their backs on hustle culture.

If you’re not familiar with the hustle culture movement, you may be thinking of the old-school definition, which is still sometimes associated with having shady ethics or using obnoxiously pushy sales tactics. But these days, hustling refers to putting work above all else—a never-ending chase for yet another client or promotion. Think long hours at your computer, midnight energy drinks, and answering texts from hustle-leaning colleagues 24/7. Theoretically, your hustler activities should put you at the top of the corporate food chain. But hustling comes at a cost.

As so many people found out during the pandemic, being a hustler involves paying a huge personal price. Writer and businesswoman Julie Ball notes in Forbes that the only thing you can expect at the hustle “finish line” is a case of serious burnout. In an interview for the New York TimesBasecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson calls hustle culture nothing short of “grim and exploitative.”

Still, the Times piece indicates that even though some people are awakening to the fact that hustle can hurt, many younger workers are still driven by the shiny allure of being known as hustlers. Staying “on” all day and all night gives them bragging rights—and makes them feel a kinship with some of the most well-known hustlers of today, such as Elon Musk and Gary Vaynerchuk.

If you’re wavering between whether to “do the hustle” or take a more balanced approach to your work and personal life, you deserve to have all the facts. Although temporary hustling may be a way to amass more money in the short term, its destination is not true career success. In fact, hustling can derail your career and satisfaction in the long run for several key reasons that you may not have considered.

1. Hustle culture positions your output as your worth.

When you’re a hustler, your checklist becomes your self-worth barometer. This means if you can’t get everything done, you’re somehow less worthy than if you push yourself to meet just some of your ambitious goals.

What’s wrong with living by your professional to-dos? It’s a surefire way to lose sight of what really matters. Value can’t be measured purely in quantities, especially if you’re a knowledge worker. Spending hours persuading a multimillion-dollar client to retain your services may be critical to your company. However, all that time spent with one company may look paltry to hustler-mentality boss if you’re just expected to land multiple high-dollar deals while also checking off a daily laundry list of deadline-sensitive responsibilities.

In addition, if you’re constantly running on a treadmill that has no “stop” button, you’re going to face burnout sooner or later. Harvard Business Review research points out that among professional workers, 7% admit to becoming victims of burnout. Maybe that number seems negligible, but it skyrockets when you drill down deeper by industries. For financial-sector employees, burnout rates have clocked in as shockingly high as 85%. If you don’t watch out, your top personal brand attribute according to those who know you may be “stressed out.”

Your brain and body weren’t built to handle the physical and psychological stressors of continuous hustling. It’s time to stop gamifying your daily duties in a quest for the rush of adrenaline every time you complete an assignment. There are other, more holistic, ways to measure your worth.

2. Hustle culture sets unrealistic expectations.

Often, we read about inspirational stories of leaders who defied the odds and challenged the status quo. Here’s the issue, though: We can get wrapped up in thinking that the only way to echo their success is by doing what they did—fourfold.

Consider Adobe’s narrative about Rani Mani, the company’s head of employee advocacy, who made a radical transition to a different field. Mani tells of being “most alive and at my best when I’m challenged and doing things that make me gasp” and of believing that “discomfort was growth in wolves clothing.”

Although Mani’s story is riveting and motivational, it shouldn’t become your everyday mantra. It’s just not realistic to go at 100 miles an hour for weeks, months, or years. Too frequently, we get absorbed by the compelling career-defining moments of people we respect. And we think that the only way to mimic their achievements is to hustle.

The next time you’re tempted to keep pace by sleeping under your desk, sidestepping lunch, or putting your personal needs on hold, take a step back. Yes, it may be necessary and prudent to put in extra hours occasionally. Nevertheless, it’s not worth it when a growth stretch starts tearing you apart.

3. Hustle culture spreads you thin.

Have you ever felt like the clock and calendar were working against you? Does it seem like you’re constantly chasing sleep just to get one more item done or write yet another email? If you feel like you’re not really working if your heart isn’t beating rapidly, you’re probably spreading yourself too thin. And we all know what happens when we put our trust in thin ice.

Let’s say you’ve been a hustler for a while. Maybe instead of angling for the C suite, you’ve been managing a slew of side gigs just to keep pace with inflation. The conundrum is that every new side gig takes away the time you can spend on all your gigs. Eventually, your production and reputation will begin to suffer because you can’t excel in everything. A fundamental concept of effective personal branding is that you need to identify your superpowers—the specific things that you do better than anyone else—and select opportunities that let you shine in those areas. Saying yes to every side offer ultimately blurs your personal brand and leads you to do a mediocre job, which in turn makes the word “mediocre” unfortunately one of your brand traits.

As someone who works in the demanding tech and software industry, Chris Cardinal, principal of Synapse Studios, knows the siren song of hustling. To be sure, tech is ripe with stories of hustlers. Yet he doesn’t give credence to the notion that “more is more.” Instead, he takes a far more practical approach to work and what can be done in any given period. “When it comes to working on complex challenges, there’s only so much productivity you can truly access in a day,” Cardinal says. “Beyond diminishing marginal returns, you actually damage capacity for productivity moving forward by sacrificing sleep and interpersonal relationships and the like, and so while you may see some short-term high output, the churn of your team and their mental health pay the price. “

We’ve all felt the rush that comes from hustling now and then. It’s a rush that’s palpable, but it needs to be kept to a minimum. Ditch the false belief that you have to hustle to make it big, snag promotions or win kudos from the top brass. First, be willing to say “no.” It’s a vocabulary word that shuts down hustle culture fast. Secondly, learn to delegate to give yourself breathing room. You may find yourself promoted to the C suite after all, instilling a culture of happiness at work as the ultimate definition of career success.