Trying to control your busyness using willpower is not the best way to reduce your hours, and may even be causing you to stay stuck in the hustle cycle.

I get why you would think this. Our society has ingrained in us that discipline and control is the way to change our behaviour.

I used to think this too. I would set New Year’s resolutions saying that I would leave the office at 5pm, instead of 6 or 7 or later. Then I would try to force myself into this new habit, only to return to my long hours a few weeks into January.

Relying on discipline and willpower alone to get out of the hustle cycle is the same as trying to lose weight through her willpower alone - only to give up after a few weeks and gain the weight back. And we’ve all heard stories of someone gaining even more weight than when they started.

In the same way, I’ve watched many women resolve to work less, only to give up their resolve after a week or two.

Many work even harder because they feel guilty about “slacking off” those first few weeks.

To actually change your behaviour, you need to understand why you are behaving this way in the first place. For most of us, our subconscious beliefs drive about 90% of our behaviour.

These beliefs will keep reinforcing the same behaviours until you uncover them and choose a new belief.

One pattern that kept me stuck was my belief that everyone else’s emotions and needs should come before mine. It meant that I tried to please everyone else at work instead of listening to my own needs and capabilities. I never set boundaries, I never said “no”, even when I knew I was already at my max. I rarely asked for help from others, thinking that I might be bothering them.

I was incredibly busy.

All the resolve in the world couldn’t get me to leave the office before I felt that I had done enough for the day. And that feeling never came. It certainly never came at 5pm.

What did I do?

Well, for years I kept trying to discipline myself into working less. Until I burned out.

That is when I finally realized I needed to do something different.

I started to dig into my beliefs about being busy in general, and about myself and my relationships with other people. After a lot of personal work and doctoral research in leadership, I developed a process I call “Busting Busyness Beliefs”.

So, how do you bust your busyness beliefs?

The first step is to start identifying what you believe about busyness. For example, I used to believe that being busy made me more valuable. Step 2 is to find out where they came from. (For this belief, it was society). Step 3 is to choose a new belief.

We’ll be launching a program very soon that details these steps, so you can feel some relief too.

So, are you going to keep disciplining yourself into working less and stay stuck in a hustle cycle? Or try something new and make real change in your life?

Sign up for the program waitlist here or book a call with me at this link if you’d like to dive in one-on-one.