Certain buzzwords rise to popularity and then lose their meaning. Hustle is one of them. And frankly, I’m not a fan of what it’s become.
It’s not the first term I’ve grown tired of. “Inbox Zero” comes to mind immediately. When Merlin Mann coined it years ago, it didn’t mean getting your email inbox to zero messages. It meant that “zero” represented the amount of time your brain was in your inbox — not the number of emails inside it.
In other words, you weren’t supposed to live in your inbox all day. You were supposed to understand what your inbox represented, then move on to deeper, more meaningful work. (You can read this piece if you want to know more about what Merlin meant.)
That nuance was lost over time. And the same thing has happened to hustle.
The Problem with Hustle Culture
The word “hustle” now suggests constant motion. It implies that if you’re not always grinding, you’re falling behind. That you need to keep moving — relentlessly, without pause.
I see this often in how people approach their to-do lists. They charge in with the hustle mindset, trying to check off as many boxes as possible, as quickly as they can. But this kind of productivity can be deceptive. You might spend your time ticking off tasks that don’t actually move you forward.
Hustle doesn’t leave much space for strategy or perspective. And when you don’t take time to step back and reflect, it’s easy to confuse activity with progress.
You Can’t Hustle Your Way to Sustainable Productivity
Sure, some people who hustle do pause. They reflect, or at least journal enough to review later. That’s helpful — but not everyone works that way. And many people simply can’t sustain that pace, nor should they have to.
You can’t hustle your way to true personal productivity. You need to focus on your intentions, then build systems to help you pay attention to them — consistently and deliberately. Forward progress comes from alignment, not acceleration.
It’s the cliché for a reason: Slow and steady wins the race.
Hustle, the Verb (and the Con)
I’m not talking about the side hustle — that’s a noun and a different conversation.
I’m talking about hustle as a verb. The relentless pushing. The go-go-go. The implication that doing more faster will get you where you want to go.
Interestingly, the other definition of hustle is to con or swindle. Maybe that’s a stretch — but when you hustle your way to “success” without intention or rest, you may end up swindling yourself. Because it’s not sustainable. And it rarely leads to meaningful results.
A Better Alternative: Be Lively, Not Hustling
Author Jeff Goins once wrote:
“If you rush the work, you can do more harm than good. That’s the problem with hustle. So let’s take our time and move with intention.”
He preferred the word perseverance. I’d like to propose another: lively.
Hustle is about doing. Lively is about being.
I’ve long said we should stop “doing” productive and start being productive. When you show up in a lively way — full of energy, engaged, and present — you can still get things done. But you’ll do so with rhythm, not rush. With alignment, not anxiety.
The definition of lively I’m aiming for:
“Full of life and energy; active and outgoing.”
If you approach your life and work with liveliness, you may still experience the benefits of hustle… but with far fewer costs.
