MIND
Until 2019, correspondent and television host Simone Boyce, 34, hit the #boss drum hard. “I was posting hustle quotes on Instagram daily,” she says. Examples? “The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately.” “Wake up, kick a**, repeat.” Simone was certainly living what she was giving on IG. In what she calls her “empire-building era,” she built a green screen studio at home to shoot YouTube videos, sometimes pulling all-nighters editing them.
And when she had her dream job as an on-air reporter (which she loved), she “was a burned-out zombie.” Makingasked her to go back on the road to cover breaking news. “As a mum to two babies, that was a fullstop moment,” she says. “I had been so singularly focused on my career, but then my focus broadened to other things that bring me meaning.” Namely, motherhood. Simone, creator of , hasn't left her ambition behind; it's just changed over time. That now includes leaning into a new season as a parent while being an entrepreneur, which brings in less money but makes her happier. “In my early 30s, I had checked off every career goal. But I realised that success wasn't enough to fulfill me. I had to disentangle my identity so I could live a more meaningful and content life,” she explains. Simone may be in her self-described Boss Recovery Era, but hustle culture inspo is still going strong. The push to constantly strive comes with a whole lot of promises: try hard enough and you can accomplish your dreams. If hustling is feeding your soul, press on. But some – many – people get hit with an ‘is that all there is?’ feeling. That's because of a phenomenon called the hedonic treadmill. You go full speed towards a goal, but when you achieve it, you continue sprinting towards the next thing, always dissatisfied with the present. For many, that leads to ail sorts of burnout.
