Hustle is a Dirty Word 🤬

You hear it all the time:  ‘You have to hustle for what you want.’  ‘You’ve got to grind to make it happen.’  I call bullsh*t!  That is absolute BS!  Hustle and grind are dirty words in my world because, in most cases, it comes from a space of scarcity and lack.  

By the time you finish reading this, you’ll come to understand why talented and dedicated artists constantly ride the struggle bus (with or without COVID-19—let’s be honest, shall we?)

Many struggling artists believe that the only way to be successful is to push, hustle, grind really hard, and sacrifice a lot. Have you considered that maybe that’s not true?  I mean, can you say with complete certainty that this is the path all successful artists take?  Or—is it just a limiting belief designed to keep talented, well-trained artists stuck, struggling, and playing small?  

 Artists who feel they have to hustle and grind to succeed do one or more of the following:

• Work for community theater when they’re talented, well-trained, and dedicated enough for Broadway
• Book student films when they are ready for feature films
• Take low paying gigs that cannot support them instead of going for jobs that pay well, simply because they believe ‘they have to pay their dues’  
• Bypass their lifelong dreams to settle for a ‘secure’ day job
• Beat themselves up because they think they’re not working hard enough, so they push and grind even more, which only leads to burnout
• Procrastinate because somewhere deep inside, they know they’re not in alignment, so they never even get out of the starting gate
• Make excuses like ‘I’m too old,’  I’m too young,’  ‘I’m too skinny,’  ‘I’m too overweight,’  ‘I’m not a dancer,’  ‘I’m not a singer,’  ‘I didn’t get a BFA.’   You get the point, right?!

And that’s the hustle and grind, my love.  Seriously, I could go on and on.  I don’t have to tell you that the hustle and grind mindset is a trap; you can see that for yourself.  

So now that you’re aware that hustle and grind is a broken paradigm, you might be saying to yourself, ‘What can I do to fix it?’ 

I’m so glad you asked.  Here is my invitation to you:  Do less, but do it better.  That’s it!  Do fewer things but do them much better.  Become a master instead of spreading yourself thin trying to do it all at once.  

Build your brand equity and authority by becoming a master at what you do.  Invest in yourself.  Invest in your well-being. Invest in becoming the person you want to be both onstage and off.  Invest in having fun. Invest in trusting yourself.  Invest in your inner and outer environments.  Invest in doing less, but doing less is so much better.  

Lastly, ask yourself what is needed for you to do this?  And, what could get in the way of you achieving this sort of pleasurable alignment?  

If you need extra support figuring it out, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me to see how we can work more closely together.

Sending you so much love and light—

Keenah