Claire Seeber: ‘Hustle culture nearly killed my relationship’

I still remember the day my husband said to me: “Claire, this isn’t working. This is not why we moved here. Something has to give”.

We’d recently moved to Melbourne, and I’d been offered a significant career growth opportunity that I’d taken with both hands.

What I hadn’t prepared for with this stretch opportunity was the strength of the ‘slave driver’ voice in my head playing tricks on me. The voice was telling me stories about how I wasn’t good enough for this role, smart enough, experienced enough, and that if I wanted to keep up and prove I was worthy, I had to just keep working harder to appear like I had it all together.

I believed I had to hustle. And hustle I did.

I spread myself so thin that I had nothing left in the tank for the person who I loved and cherished the most.

I’d given every bit of myself to this career opportunity, and I’d lost sight of the fact that it was just part of my life, not my whole life.

It is worth noting here that none of this pressure was coming from my employer at the time; instead, it was the high achieving, slave driver in me that was pushing me to think I had to hustle, and be constantly ‘on and available’ in order to be successful, instead of asking the bigger question of whether I was actually impactful.

When I look back now, I can see just how important it is to take a long-term and holistic view of your career (and your life). Just as your mind and body need to be nurtured and nourished, so too does your career, if you want it to last.

And if we want our relationships to grow and thrive, we’ve got to invest in them with passion and intention, just as we do for our careers.

Here are three things I did to get myself (and my relationship) back on track, and move towards a happy career, without the hustle.

1. Know yourself and your career values

As women in particular, we often have a tendency to place too much value on what others think of us, or we tie our worth up in meeting the needs of others, and forget about what is actually important to us.

To drive a sustainable, fulfilling and happy career (and life), knowing what your motivators are, your values, strengths, and your own personal triggers, is helpful.

This not only allows you to make better decisions in the moment, such as making the decision to spend quality time with your partner over yet another night staring at your laptop on the couch, but also helps you to make better decisions for yourself from the inside out, as opposed to the outside in.

2. Channel your inner meerkat

One of the key ways I was able to get back to embracing a career built more on ‘happy’ and less on hustle culture, and help my relationship at the same time, was to consistently adopt a meerkat approach.

When we embrace our inner meerkat it means we are consciously taking a moment to look around us at what is really happening in our life day to day; how we’re feeling, spending our time, and whether we are actually focusing on true priorities, or if there is a gap.

When we get so busy being busy, it becomes easy to lose sight of what is important, and sometimes we end up taking those things for granted.

The meerkat approach forces us to be more strategic, and invest our limited time more deliberately in ways that will generate the best return based on our values set. It enables us to move from mindless hustle, to mindful impact.

3. Master boundaries and have the discipline to hold them

We’ve all heard about the importance of boundaries, but have you ever considered that holding a boundary is more than just saying no?

Boundaries can be getting more clarity on a situation or a requirement before just blindly saying yes to it and taking on more, which inevitably then leads to time away from the things and people you love.

Boundaries can also be saying yes, but on your time and on your terms. For me, this reframe was an absolute game-changer for my relationship, and my life.

Getting more comfortable with boundaries in all forms, and then having the discipline to follow through on them will allow you to take your values and actually live them.

Some final thoughts

Some of the above may sound like things you’ve heard before, I get that.

If any part of you is reading this and feeling that little ‘ping’ in your heart when you know there is a misalignment between how you want to be spending your time and energy versus how you actually are, then I invite you to ask yourself: at what point will you put some of these tools into practice?