Knowing when to say yes and when to say no is one of the toughest things we face. Sometimes it feels like we are living in a world where rest and hustle are the only two options available–like we have to pick a team and be diehard fans. If you’re Team Rest, you advocate for self care. You can smugly judge the hustlers because you know yourself better than that. You know humans were made to rest. Because you will die if you don’t sleep. You have absolutely no problem saying no–If you went to “No” high school, you’d be the Prom Queen. On the other hand, if you are on Team Hustle you know that rest is for the weak–or if you can be frank, it’s for the lazy. There’s time to sleep in the grave and those not willing to put in the work to achieve their dreams, well that’s about the only place they’re guaranteed to go. You are willing to throw spaghetti against the wall all day long while you figure out what works because your life is one big, emphatic, Manhattan-sized yes! You can’t believe the opportunities others let pass by. But, hey, at the end of the day, more for you!
There’s a lot to love about Team Rest. Our minds, our bodies, and our souls need time to rest and recharge to be effective. Proactive rest can give us the energy and perspective we need to work hard. It’s nothing new. This is one of Stephen Covey’s seven principles. And what do you think Walden was doing in the woods, hustling? You are correct that you can avoid burnout and spinning your wheels by saying no to the things that won’t serve you. More downtime can often lead to a better imagination which in turn grows better ideas. I know I’m usually less irritable with those I love if I’m not burning the candle at both ends.
At the same time, you are special. You know you’re going to die and you want to work like hell until that point. And it’s not just fear. You actually love challenging yourself to chase big dreams and Team Hustle speaks to your big-life-loving heart. Team Hustle gives you what you need to overcome resistance and put the hours in even when you don’t feel like it. The hustle spirit can carry us through those long training runs and then right across the finish line of the marathon we never even dreamed we could complete. If we aren’t willing to push through hard things or say yes to things that make us uncomfortable, it’s hard to grow. Just like our muscles get stronger by pushing them beyond their limits, so do we.
It's both/and
The fact is, there’s lots to love about both teams. Each team has its championship season and its roster of MVPs and Hall of Famers trying to convince us to join their legion of fans. Each team has an impressive bank of evidence convincing us they hold The Truth. But there’s always a risk in being an all or nothing fan–especially when ideas are on the line. We run the risk of becoming dogmatic–of following strict protocols and rules instead of making decisions for ourselves. It can lead to missed opportunities–both for right rest and for right action. And it really doesn’t help us make informed decisions about our capacity for either.
The answer is it’s a both/and situation when it comes to rest and hustle because there really is a time and a place for both. It is good to choose rest when you need it and you should feel free to do so without fear of missing out. You may find that you’ve pushed as much as you can and need to leave room for rest. But there are also opportunities that will require us to say yes even when it feels uncomfortable because they are the opportunities placed in our path just for our growth. It’s good to rest when you are tired but it’s also good to push through. Instead of looking at rest and hustle as opposite teams, try seeing them as different plays in your playbook–each can be used effectively in different situations. So how can we know when to rest and when to hustle? It really comes down to knowing what we stand for. It is based on values.
Knowing what values you want to live by reaffirms your free will to choose. It ceases to be can I hustle through this, and your values allow you to choose should I hustle through this. (And trust me, you always can–if your six year old falls off the bed and breaks his tooth you have the energy to go to the emergency room.) When you know your values, you make principle-based decisions instead of just siding with a team that hasn’t met you and doesn’t know you and wouldn’t care about you if they did. You were knit in the womb with free will. That free will means you can make decisions that are unique to your life, with values that you’ve decided ahead of time, and each specific opportunity that comes your way gives you another chance to exercise that wonderful gift. You don’t have to live by dogma anymore. You know how to evaluate opportunities compared to your values. And the best part is the hard times. Because when you know your values, you also know your non-negotiables–you know what you want to do but also what you do not want to do to meet your goals. Knowing your own values means not being forced to live by someone else’s ideas.
It can be tough to tune out the noise when there are so many experts with such convincing data.
I’d like to share one of the most useful things I learned from my time at Harvard: for every expert with valid research, there’s usually an equally impressive expert with completely contradictory data. In fact, there was a core class called “Mind, Brain, and Education,” where we had to evaluate two opposing experts, every single night, for our homework. It made me crazy at first as I was trying to work on my thesis and find supporting evidence. But now I actually consider it one of the most valuable things I took away from earning my degree. Sure, it’s a little frustrating because, honestly, how can we know what to believe? But it’s also freeing because it empowers us to learn more and decide what we believe. It gives us the free will and power of choice–no more just trusting the “experts”–we get to use our intelligence and think and decide for ourselves. I know for me that it’s much easier to commit to things when they are based on my values, not on something someone else told me to think.
I’d encourage you to think about what you really believe, especially as it comes to rest and hustle. Take the time to reflect on what you believe and how these ideas should influence your decisions. How does what you believe show up in your life? Write out your values so that when you face your next big opportunity, you can say yes or no based on what you believe instead of a dogma that doesn’t have room for the nuance of your life.