'Hustle Culture' Is Leading Us to Burnout
Current messaging about productivity is worsening burnout for many people.
Key points
"Hustle culture" makes an already-complicated daily existence busier and less open to mindfulness.
Current social media trends promote an unhealthy attachment to productivity.
Longstanding norms of hyper-productivity are leading to increased rates of burnout.
The irony should not be lost on us: optimizing and maximizing, two words we are hearing more and more in the current life-advice social media zeitgeist, are actually resulting in exhaustion and burnout, virtually defeating their intended purpose of increasing productivity and reaching a state of ultimate effectiveness.
From “wellnessmaxxing,” the idea of optimizing self-care, to “biohacking,” the idea of intervening in natural bodily functions (such as sleep) to “hack” or maximize physical functioning, to “habit stacking,” the idea of adding a new habit to an already established one, there are a multitude of buzzy, trendy ways to reach optimal daily functioning. And these trends are to say nothing about longer-standing problematic optimization standards like blurry work boundaries and constant digital connectivity.
How 'Hustle Culture' Adds Stress Instead of Relief
While we may, in fact, be living in a time of unprecedented daily optimization, the downside of this “hustle culture” is that it can make an already complicated, overwhelming, and stressful daily existence even busier, more outcome-oriented, and less open to mindfulness and presence.
American workforce burnout reached an all-time high with nearly 72 percent of U.S. workers reporting moderate to severe levels of workplace burnout in 2025 (Mohr et al., 2025). Three out of every four Americans are feeling tired, overburdened, stretched thin, and burnt out.
Our relationships with our jobs are part of the problem, but we might argue that another part is the overarching messaging of “hustle,” “optimize,” “be productive,” and “maximize” that we hear daily, both directly and indirectly. Repeated often enough, a message can be accepted and go unchallenged. But, for the sake of our collective mental health, the message of hyper-productivity that has long been perpetuated by American culture must be challenged and changed.
Historical Roots
In psychological circles, we might trace some of this messaging back to the early self-improvement literature, which offered titles such as The Laws of Success, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, and The Master Key System. These titles were early precursors to the current culture of optimization—here is how to win, get rich, and be successful. The content of these books was rarely based on psychological theory, and often provided dubious, albeit bestselling blueprints for quick maximization.
Social Media and the Unending Push for Life Hacks
Many of the most popular optimization-based TikTok reels sound eerily similar to these old book titles: “How to Stop Procrastinating in Two Minutes,” “How to Reset Your Brain,” “How to Win Every Day,” “Leverage Your Mind.” The overarching message is the same: You can hack life by learning how to optimize your existence. This, however, comes with an unspoken caveat: We must be constantly training our brains, learning new hacks, and unlocking new shortcuts—rather than simply living our lives, we are forever striving to make them better, easier, more comfortable, and more monetarily sustainable.
Healthy Self-Improvement From Craving-Based Striving
Let me make an important distinction: Aiming to improve our lives is, of course, not an inherently bad thing and is, indeed, much of what is focused on in the therapy room. There are healthy, adaptive, and psychologically based ways to do this. The problem is that our culture of optimization presents the goal of improvement as a constant striving.
Buddhist tenets present an important differentiation between striving that is based on craving and striving that is based on “right effort.” Craving-based striving might be doing something in order to achieve more status, whereas “right effort” striving might be doing something for our long-term betterment or health (Bodhi, 1994).
Unfortunately, many of the optimization and maximization reels that are popular on social media platforms are undeniably craving-based, to wit: “How to Win Every Day.” The Buddhists would argue that craving leads to suffering, and one of the types of suffering we face in our modern world comes in the form of burnout.
The Need for Mindfulness Amidst Hustle Culture
In my clinical practice, I find myself talking more and more about mindfulness and slowing down. So many clients I see report feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and exhausted by the constant hustle and striving that has become the norm in our society. External messages have a lot of power to influence how we conduct our lives and what habits we adopt. It is important to be willing to challenge some of these messages, particularly those that lead us to negative states like burnout.
It is human nature to desire improvement and to want to better our circumstances, but the way we go about trying to achieve this dictates whether it helps or hurts us. Our current culture of optimization is accomplishing the opposite of its intended purpose: Rather than making our lives easier, it is adding more to our plates, which statistics show are already overfilled.
Phil Lane, MSW, LCSW- Blog
