If you’re on TikTok, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard entrepreneurship gurus talk about hustling.

What is hustling? By these gurus’ definition, hustling means sleeping only 4 hours a night, optimizing your productivity by planning every minute of your day, cutting out Netflix and anything else fun, and working from 6am-2am every day. And anything less than this just means you’re lazy.

Obviously, this is an extreme way of life, and justifiably so, many TikTok creators have made responses to these videos calling out flaws in this way of living. Some even go as far to say that the TikTok gurus’ idea of an awful life of coming home every day to eat take-out and watch Netflix is actually the dream.

However, there is a happy medium of these opposing viewpoints closer to the second one. And this happy medium looks different for everyone depending on what you value.

If you want to accomplish something whether it is writing a novel, breaking into a new career field (like data), or running a marathon, it’s obviously going require focused hard work. And you’re not going to make any progress by only watching Netflix when you’re not working your day job.

BUT…

Working 9 hours at your day job and 9 hours when you get home and sleeping only four hours each day is not sustainable for most people. Even if you are physically able to do this, your mental health would probably take a beating. Your brain and body need breaks.

Which brings us to our phrase of the day: self-care. Self-care can take many forms including sleeping, reading a book, watching a movie, basically anything that makes you feel happy or comfortable.

So, if you want to accomplish something and not destroy yourself mentally and physically, you need a good mix of hustle and self-care, and both need to be intentional and focused. Watching a movie while working on your hustle doesn’t count.

I was reminded of this just last week.

My weekdays recently consist of waking up at 7:30am, working my data analyst job from 8am-4:30pm, then spending a few hours working, learning, helping, and researching for my data stuff (my TikTok, Facebook group, this blog, and other social media).

While this is a lot of work, it is manageable because I enjoy my day job and I love teaching about data and helping people achieve their goals. However, I am an anxious person, and my anxiety often manifests by making me feel tired.

One afternoon after my day job, I was very tired, but I had a lot I wanted to get done for the data stuff that day. I was conflicted because I felt like I could sleep for hours, but I’m very driven to be productive. In the end, my wife convinced me that it was better for my mental health to nap instead of working and that my work would be better later in the week if I got some extra rest.

She was right, and I love her for helping me in this way. The nap tremendously helped my mental health, and I was able make to good strides toward my goals later in the week.

So, hustle when you can; rest when you need. To do something great (like breaking into data), you must work your butt off. To work your butt off, you must factor self-care into your routine. Make a plan to put a good number of hours each week to accomplish your goals but acknowledge that your mental health is more important and will sometimes take precedence over your hustle.

Thank you for reading!

If you’re interested in data and/or learning how to become a data analyst, check out my social media below.

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