The 6 Signs of Healthy (and UnHealthy) Hustle

If you've ever found yourself skipping lunch breaks, working late into the night, or saying "I'll rest when this project is done" ... this episode is for you.

In this thought-provoking episode, Nicky unpacks how our subconscious beliefs silently shape our behaviour, especially when it comes to how we hustle. She takes a deep dive into the difference between healthy hustle and unhealthy hustle and why understanding the spectrum between the two could change everything.

You'll learn:

• The six signs you're operating in the red zone of hustle culture
• The six traits of healthy hustle that fuel sustainable success
• Why "I'll just do it myself" is more dangerous than you think
• How your beliefs might be driving burnout without you even realising it
• Practical shifts to reclaim joy, presence and performance in your work

Whether you're thriving right now or feeling stretched too thin, this episode offers a timely mirror and a roadmap back to what really matters.

Because busy isn’t a badge of honour ... and burnout isn’t a strategy.

Learn more about Nicky at nickymiklos.com

Grab The Growth Code™ here!

Get your a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life at www.healthyhustle.com.au

Connect: LinkedIn | Instagram

Contact: 0403 191 404 | hello@nickymiklos.com

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Transcript

Speaker: 0:06

Our beliefs are subconsciously driving our behaviour. And I want to dive into this episode looking at what impact does that have on us as individuals, as really driven, tenacious, determined individuals, business owners, leaders, salespeople. What impact did our beliefs have on how we work, our way of working, and ultimately on keeping our hustle either healthy or unhealthy? I want to unpack today with you what's the spectrum look like between unhealthy and healthy hustle? And I'm going to share with you six signs of each. So six signs of healthy hustle and six signs of unhealthy hustle. So if our beliefs are subconsciously driving our behaviors, in other words, the actions that we take, whatever beliefs we have, we're constantly looking for evidence for those beliefs to be true. So if I have a belief that success comes only through working really hard or hustling hard is the only way to succeed, then subconsciously, without even realizing it, I'm always on the lookout for evidence for that to be true, for proof that that is actually true, whether we realize it or not. And so this is where that healthy hustle spectrum comes into place, because we need to get curious around are our beliefs driving us, moving us towards a healthy way of working, a healthy way of achieving goals? And what I mean by that is that we can have success, but not at cost of joy, life, time, health. Or actually, are our beliefs unconsciously, without us realising it, driving us towards unhealthy hustle, unhealthy ways of working? Some of the beliefs that pull us into what I call the red zone. So that place of unhealthy hustle, another way to look at that is the red zone. You know, it could be things like, I just have to get through this project, this delivery, this program, and then I'll be able to have a lunch break. Once this contract, this client agreement is done, then I'll be able to have a holiday and actually switch off. Or what about have you ever heard yourself saying, it's just easier if I do it myself? Or I need to work harder, I need to work long hours to get through this pressure period. But in fact, that's actually not always true. Yeah, sure. Sometimes we have to put in some extra hours or some additional work. But when we do that for the long term, when we're continually doing that, it actually can have the opposite effect. Stanford University did a study that showed productivity drops so much after 50 hours of working that putting in extra hours doesn't actually make a difference in terms of the quality of our output. So let's think on this for a moment. That means that if you're working 70 hours a week or 60 hours a week or even longer, you actually get the same quality level of output of work as someone who's doing 50 hours. You know, that can be actually quite hard to believe because we think in the moment that we're absolutely nailing it. But if we're really honest, if we look at the quality of our work or our conversations or how we're showing up when we're out of that loop of hustle and busy trap, we can see that actually, yeah, that does make sense. Have you ever said, I've just got to finish that one last task? I've just got to send that one last email, make that one more phone call, only to find that you end up finishing work later than you anticipated, apologizing to the people that are waiting for you at home or at dinner, or maybe having to cancel that gym class yet again because you were late. Now, interestingly, Amy Moran, who is a psychotherapist and international best-selling mental strength author, talks about the fact that many of us are actually addicted to work. And these days, there is actually a Workaholics Anonymous. And Workaholics Anonymous is a global organization that has been modeled off the 12-step program for Alcoholics Anonymous. So, of course, it's for people who are addicted to work. Now, when you're listening to this episode, you might actually be thinking, yeah, I don't have a problem with this. I'm not addicted to work. I keep my hustle healthy. I have lunch breaks, I leave work on time. That's amazing. If you do, if you have that, that's great. Rock on, keep going. But here's what I want you to think about. Oftentimes, the healthy hustle spectrum is exactly that. It ebbs and flows and it changes. So whilst you might be nailing it right now, it doesn't mean that there's not going to be a time that this conversation really matters for you. But the other thing I want you to keep in mind is that chances are somebody else around you is facing these challenges right now, are falling into these unhealthy ways of working. And the research backs this up. The American Institute of Stress reported that 94% of workers have chronic stress at work. 94%. And here on local ground, Beyond Blue did a survey just in June this year that showed nearly one in two Aussie workers are facing workplace burnout. Now, testament to all of this is the fact that we had to introduce in Australia the right to disconnect laws. You know, the fact that we have to introduce a law that protects employees, team members, staff, to say, I don't have to respond to my leaders, my boss, outside of working hours. The fact that we need to introduce a law around that is really, really telling. So chances are that somebody that you know is really affected by this, or you may personally be. And again, the healthy hustle spectrum ebbs and flows depending on what's going on for us in our lives, in our business, in our careers. Now, interestingly, also, I've got a few stats to share today. Uh, there was a survey conducted by Polish academics, a global survey, that showed preliminary results that one in five Aussies are in fact addicted to work. So if you think about your workplace, if you think about your biz besties, you know, if you've got a group of five awesome biz besties or a team, that's one in five people are facing this, that might have pepped up, perked up their ears when I mentioned workaholics anonymous. Now, I don't want this just to be talking about the doom and gloom of where we're at, but we have to face the reality so that we can then lean into the pain of that, the frustration of that, and actually reconsider how can we shift our way of working, of leading, of growing. And that's why I want to share these six signs. So you can personally identify for yourself. You could do this with your team members and with the people around you to actually look at what side of that healthy hustle spectrum or unhealthy spectrum do I actually sit on. So let's break it down. The six signs of unhealthy hustle, the red zone. The first is that you have obsessive thoughts. You're constantly thinking about your work, your business, your clients. You're thinking about the process, the services, the solutions, the deals. You might even be contacting people outside of ours. Now it's different to being passionate about the work that you do. I'm incredibly passionate and I absolutely can get pretty obsessive about my clients and the work that I'm doing. But this is nonstop, no off switch ongoing. And it's for the long term. So you might have been feeling like this for a while. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. The second sign is withdrawal. So maybe there's a major rollout, there's a major pitch that's been done, a client that's been onboarded, a cool program that you've been involved in. And after that thing, that big exciting thing, there's feelings of almost anxiety or potentially depression, almost like a come down. What next? There's a crash. You feel low, you feel a bit restless. And this is where those withdrawal symptoms can occur. Without that pressure and that excitement, there's this strange emptiness that follows. The third sign is self-worth is tied to output. So no matter how much you achieve, it never feels like enough. You're always skipping the wins, moving along to the what next, what next, what next. There's a really great podcast episode that Ness and I recorded interviewing Andy McCarthy. And I'll pop the link in the show notes because it's a really great episode to listen to if you're relating to this. And this is something that Andy talked about, just skipping to the what next, what next for 13 years in business. The fourth sign is increased tolerance to your substance of choice, in this instance, working hard, your ways of working. So for example, all of a sudden, skipping lunch breaks, it's the norm. Start staying back late, coming in early, it's the norm. Like I said, being late and uh, you know, not being on time for your loved ones, for dinner, whatever that might be, all of a sudden, it becomes the norm. Which links to the fifth sign, which is neglect. We're neglecting other areas of our lives, our health, our well-being, me time, family time, the things that bring us joy. And sign six wraps all of this up in a bow, in that negative outcomes, despite the negative outcomes, we don't change our way of working. So when you have obsessive thoughts, withdrawal, your self-worth is attached to the output, you have increased tolerance to these unhealthy ways of working, there's neglect in other areas of your life. And despite all this, negative outcomes continue. If you can relate to all six or a lot of these signs, then potentially you are sitting in that red zone, the unhealthy hustle. Now, these six signs of unhealthy hustle are actually the six signs of entrepreneurial addiction or work addiction that Amy Morin, who I mentioned before, has outlaid or laid out in her work. Now, again, some of these in isolation might be fine. Some of these for short term might be fine. We can overlay the conversation around positive and negative stress here. Positive stress is good. It creates momentum, it helps us want to keep going. It gives us motivation. But positive stress unchecked can turn into negative stress, which then turns into chronic stress and burnout and so on. And what keeps it as positive stress is that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a shorter term focus. I want you to imagine you've got a bingo card. You pulled out a bingo card and you're going to rate yourself with these six signs. How many would you get? And how long has it actually been in place? So we talked, I started talking about our beliefs subconsciously drive our behaviors. I want to link that here because your beliefs feed into these six signs of entrepreneurial addiction or being addicted to work. So you might have learned somewhere along the way that the only way to be successful is to work long hours. Or maybe you picked up, if I miss my lunch break, I'm showing my boss that I'm serious about my job. Maybe you saw your parents or your caretakers sacrifice time at the dinner table for their work. These are all the types of examples and ways that we actually pick up on these unresourceful beliefs that drive our behaviors to the red zone or to the healthy hustle zone. It's all connected. And so truly, if we can change our beliefs, we can change our habits, we can change our behaviors, and that is when you can change your life. Now, for some of you, that might sound a bit woo-woo, but it's actually true. I really want you to think about as a leader listening to this conversation, or you're with me, you know, you're watching, and we're here together. It's so important for you to think about the example that you are setting for your people and those around you. How are you impacting the beliefs of your team? How are you helping them create and embed in their everyday lives with the habits and behaviors that they see you take? Because remember, action speaks louder than words. If you say, and I get this a lot in coaching sessions with clients, yeah, yeah, but I tell people that it's really important that they finish on time. Get out of here. What are you doing here? Get out of here. Or to have a lunch break. And that's great, awesome, I love that. When I ask that leader, do you do that? Do you finish work on time? Or do they see you working past hours? And even behind the scenes, emails at 10 p.m. 10 p.m. for some reason is like the sweet spot time. At the moment, I'm hearing people say, Oh, yeah, I'm checking my emails at 10 p.m. or, you know, for some reason it's 10 p.m. is the sweet spot for people jumping back on and, you know, checking and sending emails. Now, if that's you and that is a really hard habit to break for you right now, or it's positive stress and it's short term, although I'd argue that's not a habit we ever want to be getting into for many reasons, um, you know, to do with our sleep and screen time and circadian rhythms. And Ariana Huffington wrote some really great books on this. But if that is you and you're like, Nikki, I'm not ready to give that up yet, okay, please schedule the send of the email, at least so your team don't see that you're sending those emails late at night. Because when you say it's important for you to have work-life balance or leave work on time, but you're not actually doing that yourself, you're actually telling them a different story. They won't believe the words that you say. Not fully, not a hundred percent, because actions speak louder than words. So make sure they see you take a lunch break. That if you are working after hours, it's for a short-term period and for a particular reason. Okay, so I trust that you've got that really important message and you've heard that loud and clear. And the action I want you to take around that is really reflect as a leader, even as a salesperson, as a sales leader, leader, business owner, how are my habits and behaviours, my actions, how could they be impacting the people around me? A quick interruption to this podcast episode. I'm really curious, do you want to close more sales in less time? If the answer is yes, which I hope that it is, then you need to get your hands on the growth code. It is going to give you three proven frameworks and tools that will help future-proof your business and scale with clarity. All you have to do is head down to the show notes and click the link below. So let's flip the script now. I want to focus on healthy hustle. You've got your bingo card, you've got how many out of six for unhealthy hustle for the red zone. But what does healthy hustle actually look like? When I really consider this, and I've taken Amy Morin's Six Signs of Entrepreneurial Addiction and considered, well, actually, what is the spectrum that we're shooting for that we want to get to? Because when you're in healthy hustle mode, it looks and feels very different. You know, again, you're getting results, you're outcome-driven, but you actually feel really good about it. For example, you have honored boundaries. You have no-go zones in place. You know, no-go zones are a really great place to start. If you work with me and you're listening to this, chances are you have heard me say this a number of times. No-go zones are awesome for if you have a really hectic, crazy, busy schedule. So we can talk about honouring your boundaries, setting boundaries for a start, but then actually seeing them through, honouring them. Sometimes that can be tricky. I get that. So a good starting place is just get really clear on one or two no-go zones. That could be one night a week that you do not work past 5 p.m., one morning a week that you absolutely do not dedicate to work at all. It could be no working on the weekends. What is your no-go zones? Your no-go zone could be for you. It could be for time with family. You know, great example that I hear a lot is having tech and screens at the dinner table, checking emails at breakfast. Maybe that stops. That could be a no-go zone. No tech at the breakfast, breakfast table. Hopefully, not at the dinner table. Not doing emails at 10 p.m. could be a great one. So honored boundaries is the first sign of healthy hustle. The second sign is that you feel fulfilled. So you're not just in this place of busy. We're always gonna be in busy. But we can almost, it's almost look like looking at it as a resourceful busy or an unresourceful busy. So when we're fulfilled, yeah, yeah, we're gonna be busy. That's just the reality that we live in. But we're also celebrating milestones. We're acknowledging success. Third sign is that you have self-trust. You back yourself with self-trust. You're no longer, your self-worth is no longer tethered to output. You don't need to prove your worth through the amazing results that you're getting. Then we've got focused momentum. So the fourth sign is focused momentum. What I mean by that is that there is momentum, but there's clarity. So progress is steady, not frantic. It's not up and down. Now, for those of you who have ADHD or neurospicy, you might still feel like it's up or down, just a side note, but underlying there's steady progress. And you're working within the momentum and your own rhythm. The fifth sign is that you're actually living. So in the book Healthy Hustle, and if you haven't got a copy of that yet, healthyhustle.com.au, we talk about the six signs of work addiction in there. But we also talk in there around this difference between busy and living. And living means that you're present in life. Again, it doesn't mean that you're not actually technically busy, but you have more moments of presence. You're more aware of moments that matter. You get to the end of the day, and it's not as much of a, oh my goodness, how did I even get here? You might have that a little bit, but you have milestones, you have micro moments in the day that actually have grounded you. And the sixth sign of healthy hustle is creative flow. Have you ever noticed that really good ideas can come to you in the shower? Why is that? It's because you don't have foveal focus, laser focus on something else. When we take a step back and we gaze at the sky, we have a shower, or we are not like go, go, go, laser phobial focus on something, our brain actually has the opportunity to connect the dots, to connect different ideas, to present solutions to problems that we've been pondering, to come up with new ideas. The patterns start to show themselves and present themselves. And this is why we need to find space, connect. I love micro moments, connecting to earth, putting your feet on the ground, looking up the sky. But the more micro moments, if we can, if we can make them longer, then that's where creative flow can happen. So the six signs of healthy hustle, you have honored boundaries, you are fulfilled. There's self-trust and you back yourself, focused momentum. You're actually living and present, and there's creative flow. So I want you to pull out your bingo card again and see how many out of six, what's your score? And interesting to compare. How did you relate to and resonate with the unhealthy side of things, the unhealthy spectrum versus the healthy side of things? So to take away for your takeaway here, I really want you to think about what came up for you when I was taking you through the six signs on either side. Because that your initial reaction, whether there was a butt clench moment, a bit of a, oh, I feel a bit sick about that, or oh my gosh, yes, I relate, whatever side, or maybe with the healthy hustle side. It was like, yeah, I've been working on that and I'm nailing it. Really think about your instant reaction to everything that's just been spoken about. And that is the feedback for you to focus on one key area. Whatever gave you the biggest emotional reaction, that's where you can think about, okay, I'm gonna focus here. Because it's either something that's missing, it's a gap, or it's an area that you can improve on. So, what was that thing? And if you need to listen back or watch back to find what that key point is, I then want you to think about what resourceful belief would I need to have to change or create this habit or this action or this focus? What belief would I need to have? Now we can go deeper around this and looking at cool, what's the existing belief that I need to remove so that I can replace it with? And that's up to you how deep and how far you want to take this. But really, the key point here is having an understanding that your subconscious beliefs are driving your behavior. In other words, the actions that you're taking. And that's not just true for the ways of working, but for every area of your work and your life. So really get curious around what are my beliefs and how are they impacting me? Are they pulling me towards the red zone or are they moving me towards the healthy hustle? And if I'm really honest with myself, what's one area that I can improve to move towards healthy hustle? I trust that you have taken some value and some great insights out of this conversation. As always, I would love to hear how you go with this. You can connect with me on all the usual channels, links below. Until next time, happy selling and have an awesome day.