Do you know what’s exhausting?
Hustling for worthiness.
- Performing, when you’re not an actor.
- Perfecting, when your standard means nothing is ever quite good enough.
- Pleasing, when you’re an approval junkie.
- Proving, when that little voice whispers, You’re not enough.
I’ll bet you know what I’m talking about. Because I’ve yet to meet a woman who doesn’t have stories of the hustle.
That near-constant need to perform—for your boss or your kids’ teachers, even your friends. To act like you’ve got it all together, even when you don’t feel that way inside.
That terrible master Perfectionism letting you know the minute you wake up—even before your feet hit the floor—that today, once again, you will fall short.
The incessant worry about what others will think that has you contorting yourself to fit in. You’ve elevated currying favor to an art form. Your name badge might as well say People Pleaser.
And proving. Over and over again. That you’re smart enough. Good enough. That you belong. That you deserve to be where you are.
Here’s what Brené Brown has to say about the hustle from The Gifts of Imperfection:
When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness—the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging. When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving. Our sense of worthiness—that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging—lives inside of our story.
Hustling for worthiness: I work on this Every Single Day.
Because those 4Ps can be like a siren’s song. They have this short-term appeal that makes me want to head down that road. But where they take me Is Always Bad.
Bad for my self-compassion. My creativity. My serenity. And most of all, a very bad choice for cultivating authenticity in my life.
What about you? Are you way too familiar with the trap of any (or all) of these 4Ps? Are you hustling for your worth?
