Momentarily Pausing the Hustle

I’ll admit it, I’m drawn to the “Hustle Movement” that’s gotten widely popular in the entrepreneurship community. The attitudes, the Instagram accounts, SnapChat, the Podcasts. All of it. I love that stuff. It’s inspiring, interesting, motivating, and flat out intoxicating to watch people push their businesses to the edge, and succeed. The undisputed heavyweight champion of the hustle in this day and age is Gary Vaynerchuk. No doubt about that. The 24/7 connectedness of our society makes it possible and the remote worker environment, even more so.

One place I constantly find inspiration is the blog of Jennifer Bourn, named Inspired Imperfection. It’s a great mix of business, family, and healthy living. If you’ve never been there, go and check it out (and be sure to signup for her newsletter, it’s good stuff). Jennifer wrote an article a while back named “Embrace the Grind: Grow a business with babies and toddlers”. It’s timed perfectly, I have both a baby and a toddler, and well, want to grow business! Awesome.

Momentarily pausing the hustle

There’s no secret that the hustle can lead to some pretty insane work habits. For better or for worse, you end up working (or thinking about work) more often than your “40 hours”. There’s no shame, it’s what successful people do. Inspiration and business don’t stop when the bell rings at 5pm, because there is no bell. We’re always connected, always consuming, and always thinking of new ways to grow. Taking a little time to yourself in all that hustle, is something I would encourage. I, myself, get a massage every 2 weeks. For my most recent appointment, my regular massage therapist wasn’t available however. At first this really threw me for a loop, thinking it was going to be a ‘going through the motions’ type of day, but something happened, something awesome.

Change is good, and helpful

My usual massage therapist and I treat my time like a physical therapy session. Sitting in a chair all day staring at screens is proven to be hard on the body, and she get’s me all re-aligned and encourages me to stretch and gives me feedback on how my body is doing. It’s awesome, but the session feels more like a workout than relaxation. This is fine, it’s what the goal is. We want to work the muscles back into a state of alignment. This latest visit, not knowing this therapist well, I opted for a little less pressure with a more ‘relaxing’ style. Something told me I needed this anyway, from a emotional and mental perspective.

Todays’ massage…was mentally stimulating…in all honesty. Instead of my body reacting to the physical act of working out tension, my mind spent more time focusing on, frankly, nothing. I honestly just laid there and tried to be present. It was that way for about 10 or 15 minutes, then flood gates opened. I had a rush of clarity where I wasn’t worried about my work, my family, my kids, my wife. None of it. I had a moment to let my mind stop, and perform. In fact, the outline of this very article was part of the remaining 50 minutes of my session. I had the opportunity to freely think without boundary. It was damn near liberating.

Respect yourself while you hustle

While I 100% love the hustle mentality, there is something to be said for respecting yourself enough to stop hustling for a moment. Stop pushing so hard to move forward and simply think about where you are. Think about what your state of being is around others. Do you like who you are outside of the hustle?

Frankly, stop and think about where you are headed, so that you can focus on where you want to go. The massage mentioned above taught me one thing. Stop. Just for a moment. Stop the Twitter. Stop the Instagram. Stop it all. Think about what is affecting your mood and your relationships. Stop thinking about what you need to hit your next goal, and start thinking about what is stopping you from being the best version of you, both physically and emotionally.

Treat yourself today. Focus on tomorrow…tomorrow (but just for today, tomorrow…hustle).