Hustle for Yourself
Lately, I’ve been delving into more topics centered around health and well-being. While I’ll forever be a champion for building, establishing, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, I want to look at the other side of this lifestyle that is your hustle. You have all the opportunities of the world available in front of you if you’re willing to go after them. The key is you have to want it.
Nothing great in life comes magically out of thin air. You have to go out and get what it is that you seek for yourself while you’re lucky to still be living and breathing. The irony of this ubiquitous message is the fact that most of us don’t even know what it is that we truly want to pursue in the first place. It’s the beauty in that journey of being curious and discovery alone that makes the numerous attempts worthwhile though.
Having said that, the most important message I can share with you is:
You have to at least try out what intrigues you.
That’s therapeutic for me to say because I can relate to all of you dreamers and over-thinkers. There’s the overshadowing notion of humiliation and derision that comes with the potential failure of even trying what excites you. However, you simply have to do it for yourself, because, in reality, you owe it to yourself. The thought of trying already crossed your mind, so that must mean you have some inclination to instantiate it.
Now that you’ve been able to overcome that mental hurdle, and boy is it a big one for many of us, you now enter the scary, exhilarating state of the twists and turns that come with the journey and pursuit. No person, book, college course, etc. can prepare you for the journey you’re about to experience, but it’s one that so many of those who’ve preceded you will say they wouldn’t trade a thing for.
In order to manage the vicissitudes of pursuing a hustle, I find it helpful to keep a clear, focused mind of the following three pillars:
Vision
Arguably the most important of the three, your vision for your life going forward needs to be as fleshed out as can be. The will to initiate and continue on with the journey starts and ends with your vision. From personal experience, I’ve found at times to be straying away from the path and structure as a direct result of an honestly murky vision I chose to ignore for quite some time.
Your vision will be the central tenant for defining and shaping your hustle, so it’s vital to take time to truly understand your needs and priorities. Here’s a good place to start on that prioritization process in case you’re lost on how to start. A great analogy I like to pair with vision and understanding your priorities is:
The reflection off water is only clear once it is calm and still.
Persistence
Harking back to the guiding theme in this post, you have to be willing to stay disciplined and consistent in going after your hustle. If your vision is clear enough from above, there will be no reason to falter. Now having said that, I know that to not be the case given the emotional turmoil and unexpected life events that we experience that prove to be nearly insurmountable roadblocks. Note that I said nearly and not definite.
Former Navy SEAL, David Goggins, puts it best in detailing the 40-percent rule. No matter how trying and difficult the moment may appear to be in the present moment, you always have the ability to switch into an even higher gear since you’re only operating at likely 40 percent of your true potential. Learning to train the mind to push further each and every day is the mantra here. Some days will be great and others atrocious, but the ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other is the most important thing.
Curiosity
The natural propensity to continue absorbing new information will always be the telltale sign of a hustle that is worth your time. Constantly wanting to get better and improve every day at your craft stems from the childlike curiosity that so many of us lose as we get older. Find what excites you on the surface and continue to dig deeper and even deeper to see if it still excites you; that’s when you’ll know you found your hustle.
Adding on yet analogy, curiosity to your pursuit is like oxygen to fire. No matter how much you’ve been able to knock down the previous two tenants, sustainability for the hustle will only come as a result of a constant learner’s mindset. Heck, being curious shouldn’t restrict itself to just your hustle. There’s always something new to learn and to gain from in any domain of life that can provide for a fuller life experience, whatever that may mean and entail for you personally.
These three tenants have helped me tremendously stick to the variety of projects I’ve been pursuing lately. I’ve personally found that once you’re able to build up the foundation in your values prioritization and a general mindset for health and well-being, you’re primed for starting the pursuit. One of the tricky aspects that comes with the territory of this moment, though, is the conflation of whether you’ve actually built the proper foundation and fear of setting out on the hustle - don’t overthink it and trust your gut answer.
Not you, nor he/she/they, nor I know what will come out of it, if anything at all. To a certain extent, that’s the beauty in it all knowing that you won’t truly know unless you give it a go. If you’re able to clear your mind (more on that here), develop the foundational values mentioned earlier, and pay detailed attention to the three aforementioned pillars, you’ll have all the ingredients to embrace the uncertainty that comes with the territory. You’ll be able to embrace it for yourself, and there’s a special man, whose birthday it is as I write this, that is encouraging you along the way.
We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it. - Kobe Bryant
“Take a leap of faith on your dreams, not for me and not for the society, just for yourself.” – Vinay Garg
