Calling Out Hustle
A day in the life of moving from hustle to harmony in real time
The past two weeks have been so FULL! The calendar reflects it, my family’s emotions reflect it. I feel like everywhere I turn, it is FULL FULL FULL.
My hustle energy pops out when life feels too full. My first thought is always, “If I could just do things faster, I could get more done.”
Um, no. That is incorrect.
My shoulders get tighter, my gut starts to hurt. My anxiety starts to build.
Stop. Take a breath. Notice my body. Pivot to a different thought, a different way.
Case Study of a Hustle Call Out
This weekend, this happened. I went to what I thought was a three-hour soul refreshment retreat, but it turned out to be a three-hour introduction to caring for your soul.
I knew I was in trouble when the opening line was, “We normally take four days to go over this material, but we are going to cover it in the next three hours.” I immediately hunched up my shoulders, and my chest felt tight.
I needed space, not MORE, I needed space immediately.
I excused myself from the table and went to the bathroom. Sometimes your most important moments can happen in a public bathroom stall.
Stop: that was me getting up and walking out of the training.
Breathe: I literally took in three deep breaths and let them out very slowly.
Notice my body: I noticed my shoulders were hunched. I purposefully relaxed them while continuing to take deep breaths.
Pivot or stay: I chose to stay at the conference as I knew there was good to be found there; I just needed a mind, body, and expectation reset.
What made me laugh was that when I returned to the meeting room, everyone was being led in deep-breathing exercises.
Name What Matters
I am a verbal processor. I need to say words out loud to find my way through, thus this substack. As I was driving home from the three-hour conference, I Marco Polo’ed a friend and just said all the words about all the things out loud. In essence, I ranted about how pressured and hustled I felt in my own life. I finished the rant with an invitation of “If you are clearly hearing anything that I am not realizing, please feel free to bluntly say it back to me.”
Earlier that morning, I had imagined myself returning (expectations) to the house refreshed and ready to engage my family. Instead, I marched into my house, called an immediate family meeting, and said something to the effect of, “I am really overwhelmed and feeling hustled. I need to resolve a few issues before I can be a civil person around here. I am sorry I am coming into the house like this, but I want to be clear what my needs are and that I don’t just yell at you guys because I feel stressed in my life.” My husband and son each nodded their heads, mouths shut. I marched to my office, changed my Mom O’Meter to DO NOT DISTURB, shut the door, and began doing what I needed to do to get these three specific things off my mind.
See, while I was ranting to my friend on MP, I had managed to name what mattered for that afternoon. It was three layers of my life colliding into one, but once I pulled the layers apart, I was able to see the individual things that were causing me the most angst.
A work thing that needed immediate attention - I addressed it. (A thing - click here to read more about naming a thing.)
Helping my son up with his weekend homework - which once the work thing was handled, my mind and heart were clear enough to realize I just needed to hold space for him and hold him to doing it. (A person - click here to read more about naming a person.)
The third thing was the agenda for the rest of the day. We were scheduled to have dinner with another family, and my husband and I needed to figure out the plan for the next few hours so that we could show up on time with the food we had offered to bring. (A place - click here to read more about naming a place.)
It’s almost comical to me to look at this list right now because it seems so mundane and simple, yet when you are overwhelmed and feeling pressed for time, everything compounds and feels harder.
What is the point of all this?
Moving from hustle to harmony happens in small moments. I did it in the bathroom stall. I did it on the way home, ranting into my phone. I did it by setting aside a clear space for myself to sort myself out (my office, with my dial set to red).
As I acknowledged the pressure I felt, I could feel where the pressure was settling in my body. I looked at the layers of my life and realized they were all stacking up, but once I chose to address them one by one, they were very manageable.
We had a lovely afternoon. The work thing was completely resolved, the homework got mostly done, we went to Costco and got what we needed for the week and for our dinner with our friends, and we had a very enjoyable dinner with those friends.
How to Find Harmony
Harmony is when your mind, body, soul, calendar, and expectations work together to make your life better, without stress or overscheduling tearing you apart.
Name what matters
See the layers of your life
Make a plan for what you can
Communicate with your people what you need
These sound like easy steps, but when we feel overwhelmed, they feel hard. If you are feeling overwhelmed, just start with number one. Name what matters for the next thirty minutes.
Remember that meaningful moments lead to harmony in your time, work, and life. Each moment, you have a choice to either hustle more or stop, take a breath, name what matters, and make a decision with your whole self.