Your Hustle is Holding You Back

Stop working so much.

Whether you’re an “overthinker” or an “overdoer,” you’re likely spending too much time doing what you’re good at or what feels like progress, and not enough time resting, planning, preparing, and improving yourself.

Remember, the brain is clever (according to the brain…), and lazy. It will avoid hard work at all costs. And sometimes, it will trick you into thinking you’re working hard just to keep from working hard!

It's really easy to just keep doing what you like, or keep doing what you're good at, or keep doing the thing that has to be done. And it's easy to think that you're making great progress and that you're working hard and that you're doing your best. But in reality, too much of this can be a problem.

Failing to take time for yourself to improve your craft, to sharpen the axe, is something that you don't realize is the problem until it becomes a big problem and you’re burnt out, missing deadlines, or sabotaging the growth of your business for the sake of “being more efficient.”

You end up grinding away with a dull axe, trying to chop down the forest, making good progress, but not making nearly as much progress as you could have made if you took the time to sharpen the blade.

Flip the switch this week. Add margin into your day. Slow down your mornings. Plan and prepare before you execute. Execute aggressively. Be consistent in your actions.

Sharpening the axe will allow you to get better at your craft.

It's really hard to do for some people (myself included) to just “sit and do nothing,” but realizing that it could be the most productive thing you do all week will make a huge difference.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Sharpen your axe.