The Hustle That Almost Killed Me

I am 99% sure that if you’re reading this right now, then you’ve been going through a tough time recently.

Perhaps work has been more stressful than usual. Maybe there have been a few issues in your personal life. Or perhaps it’s been challenging to motivate yourself to get out of bed every day and do your basic daily tasks.

I’m sure you’ve been told by others that it’s okay not to be okay, or you’ve seen influencers on Instagram telling you that it’s okay to feel this way.

But here’s the caveat: I guarantee that you don’t actually know how to be okay with not being okay, and you continue to go through the motions every single day.

Most of these influencers only talk about how they are in a better place now and how they are thriving in life. None of them give genuine and practical strategies on how to get to that point in the first place.

I’ve suffered from depression for most of my life, so most of my struggles came with having to change thoughts and behaviours of mine that have been ingrained in me for a long time.

It took me nearly a decade to rewire my mindset and develop genuine strategies to get through those tough days. Every time I felt like I was just about to break through, I would crumble and fall apart. I wanted to throw in the towel and give up so many times.

However, I somehow found a way, and I’m here to share my experience with you, in the hope that it helps you find that little bit of mental strength to keep on, keeping on.

The moments that forced me to change my mindset and attitude towards my health

We live in an era where hustle culture is preached and promoted to a toxic level.

In Sydney, Australia, where I live, we tend to judge people’s self-worth and ability as a person based on how many hours they work in a week and how many jobs they have.

When I opened my first music school with a franchise in 2022, the first thing that the franchisor asked me was, “Are you willing to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 5 years?”

The hustle culture is even worse in Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong, where taking a day off due to illness is considered disrespectful to your company and could potentially cost you your job.

There’s no doubt that to have success in your career, you need to put in the time and effort to develop your skills.

However, it is incredibly unhealthy and frankly ridiculous to expect anyone to work at 100% capacity, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. While this attitude may lead to extraordinary financial return and professional success later down the line, it will certainly come at the cost of your physical and mental health and relationships.

After I finished high school in 2015, I went straight into working full-time while my classmates and friends were having their gap years.

I started teaching guitar lessons full time, and by mid-2016, I had 40 private students a week. Along with teaching, I was working on writing my own guitar curriculum and performing 2–3 gigs a week. In 2021, I started my university degree at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney and continued to teach full time simultaneously.

By this stage, I had been working and studying for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for six years straight, which led to a host of health issues, including:

• Being diagnosed with severe anxiety

• Being diagnosed with chronic fatigue

• Being diagnosed with major depression

• A mild heart condition and extremely high blood pressure

• Severe insomnia, averaging no more than 4 hours of sleep a night.

I was not in a good space, and there was very little in life that excited me.

Everything from the simplest of daily tasks, such as brushing my teeth or putting on my clothes, felt like a monumental struggle. Getting through to lunch without having a panic attack was a mini-milestone on its own. Getting through the day without crying was a triumph. This all culminated in me having a complete mental breakdown.

At the end of 2021, I sat down and reflected on the last few years of my life and wrote down two directions I could take moving forward:

• I could continue doing things the way I was, to the point of completely destroying myself and eventually taking my own life.

Or…

• Start prioritising my health first so I could find the energy to get through a day and eventually begin to enjoy life once again.

How I Learnt To Rest.

Life hasn’t exactly been easy since 2021.

I still have days where I struggle to get out of bed to brush my teeth. There are days where I question my own existence. There are days where I find it impossible to smile at anything.

But despite this, I’ve found ways to bring my mental strength, resilience, and perseverance to be able to get through the darkest of days.

Scheduling in a permanent rest period in a week

Before 2022, I was constantly switched on and never thought about rest. The only time I would genuinely rest was when my body completely shut down, and I’d pass out on my couch.

Since 2022, I’ve scheduled in Friday nights and all of Saturdays as times where I do not do any work. From Friday 7 pm, I don’t look at a single email or work-related text until Sunday afternoon at 5 pm that weekend. The only time I will break this rule is if I have urgent work to do.

Every other time, I will leave the work for Monday and mentally prepare myself for a period of rest where I do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whoever I want.

I cannot stress the importance of scheduling in a rest period for yourself, and more importantly, mentally allowing yourself to rest. It is so easy to feel like you are falling behind at work, and you have deadlines that you must complete. Even if the work isn’t exactly urgent, many of us will still work long into the night to complete a task just because our boss told us to, or there’s that perceived pressure of falling behind.

Inevitably, working under extreme mental and physical exhaustion will not only take longer than usual but will likely be of lower quality, to the point you’ll probably scrap it the next day and have to redo the task.

When I made this change in my life, I asked myself these three questions:

• Does the work actually have to be completed now, or can it be done later?

• Will I be able to complete the work to a higher level after some rest?

• What are the long-term implications of resting more?

As I mentioned earlier, it is so easy to feel like you have to finish all your work now because you will fall behind your colleagues if you don’t.

On top of that, there’s also the perceived indirect pressure coming from Instagram influencers or entrepreneurs who seem like they are light years ahead of you in their careers. In today’s society, we are constantly rushed and feel the need to do as much as we can in the shortest amount of time.

The truth is, no matter how much you accomplish in your professional career, it will never be worth it if it comes at the cost of your mental and physical health and your personal relationships.

Once I realised the reality of my situation, I knew that in order for me to have long-term success, I needed to be healthy.

I accepted the fact that this decision may slow down my career aspirations by a year or so, and that my fellow compatriots would zip past me in their careers. However, I had no doubt in my mind that, by taking care of myself now, I would not only be healthier for a longer period of time, but I will also be happier with all aspects of my life.

There is a reason why people say “your health is the important thing in your life.”

But the question is, do you actually believe this, and are you willing to take the steps to make it the most important thing in your life?

Remember this: success is meaningless if it comes at the expense of your well-being.

I hope my story can help others avoid the same pitfalls I fell into. Your health is your most valuable asset—protect it at all costs.