Less Grind More Chill
[Music]
before i get started
by show of hands how many people are
good workers
okay
that’s good that’s good
all right
now by a show of hands how many people
are good resters
okay
okay well so if you weren’t able to
raise your hand for the second question
that’s fine
we’re not really taught how to rest or
in this case how to chill
and that’s really because we live in the
world
of the grind
the grind right the grind’s everywhere
it’s in movies
it’s in television we even make songs
about the grind
anderson grant into us early
we ask kids what do you want to do when
you grow up
right but what we’re really asking is
what kind of job do you want to have for
the rest of your life
we’re asking five-year-olds this
so we know about the grind
and there’s some virtue in the grind
right
but there’s some downsides to
what we know as grind culture that i
want to highlight
and so one the grind is not sustainable
all right you can have
a dedicated amount of time to the grind
to get things done right but
the nature of the grind is that the pace
of it is steady
but
it’s never ending
so if you don’t stop the grind it’s just
going to keep going until it just tires
you out
so it’s not sustainable
secondly it show it shuns any form
of rest
grind culture champions the idea of
i’ll sleep when i die
and wears it as a badge of honor
but that’s not really good
and it wears on us over time
and so
the idea that we sleep when we die
as a concept is just a toxic idea of how
hindering yourself with the rest
is the thing that happens when you rest
right
so it doesn’t really support that idea
and third
it doesn’t honor humanity
the grind does not care if you’re sick
the grind does not care if you’re
feeling bad today
and it doesn’t care
if you have some family issue the grind
wants you to work
the grind wants you to produce as if
you’re a machine right
but we’re not machines
but even machines need to unplug
so
with those three things combined
it can have us to feel like we don’t
have any ownership
of our time let alone of our entire life
and when we feel like that
that’s the perfect recipe for
the thing
the thing to happen right
now you probably wonder what the thing
is
well the thing happened to me
i was in college
i think it was junior year
and i had a full schedule
classes were intense
and every professor i had acted as if
their class was the only class that i
had
i don’t know why they do that
but i was up for the challenge
and
i knew that the grind that i had was
going to serve me in that situation so i
did good
for like two weeks
and then something about those classes
got even more challenging it got even
more demanding
and i knew what i had to do then
i had to turn the grind all the way up
and i had to put the chill all the way
down
and i was able to sustain that over a
certain amount of time but
eventually those long nights
those early mornings
not resting not eating properly caught
up with me and that’s when the thing
happened
i remember i woke up one morning
i could barely sit up
my face was broken out
my mouth was dry
i had a throbbing headache
and all i could do was just lay in bed
the thing caught up with me
and that thing
was burnt out
anybody experience burnout
that’s a lot of hands
so burnout is a part of
grind culture
unfortunately
and
when you’re burnt out
you’re not really good for anyone
you’re not really present
for anyone let alone yourself
so i was in that bed
and all i could do was sleep
and that’s when i realized that
when i turned the ground all the way up
i had no space for chill no space for me
and so
that’s when i realized that something
had to change
23 percent
of the working force
experiences burnout
all the time
or at least very often
while 44
feel burned out every now and then
meaning that over two-thirds of the
working force are burnt out right now
and like i said when you’re burnt out
you’re not good for anyone not even
yourself
so when i was in the bed i knew
something had to change
i need to have less
grind
and i needed some more chill
but the question came
how can i put more chill
into my life
i don’t know what that looked like i
wasn’t really taught that
but i had to figure out something
because i had the rest of the semester
to finish
so
i think that was the good thing if we
can see a silver lining that i’ve this
happened in college before i got into
the workforce so i had some time to
pivot and make some things work for
myself
what i found
was that doing these things
helped me to have some control over
myself and my time which was very
important
and that’s what got me through the rest
of that semester
and the rest of my academic career
and then for the rest of my life
i want to share a few things or four
specific things that help me
add more chill to my life
the first thing you have to prioritize
the chill
if you’re like me if you don’t put it on
the calendar it doesn’t happen right so
it has to be that important
your meetings
your lunch dates
and chilling
put it on the calendar that way it’ll
happen
all right
so one prioritize the chill
secondly you have to dedicate a space
for the chill a lot of times we don’t
chill because we feel like we don’t have
space for it
sometimes all we got is the car right
now the car is a great place to chill
you know before you go in the house or
go to work or wherever that is a great
place and sometimes it’s all we have but
that’s okay
it’s about having a place that is sacred
for that
and everybody doesn’t get to come in
that space you know not not your
children not your spouse not even your
mama
that space is just for you
so dedicate space for the chill
then three actually chill
don’t look on your phone don’t scroll
don’t try to check emails don’t try to
be productive literally do nothing
chill
that’s time just for you
and it’s hard to do that because we’re
not taught how to just stop and do
nothing
but this can start a pattern of being
okay with doing nothing
which gets me to my last point which is
point four
have guilt free
chill
don’t feel guilty
about chilling
or taking a break or stopping
i think we feel that way because
we have been taught that we have to be
productive
and we have to work and we have to work
hard and that’s where our value is
and so when we
don’t work
we feel
less valuable
sometimes we don’t even feel worthy
and so we have to learn how to undo that
type of thinking so we can actually have
really good moments to just chill
ironically
because we’re not taught that it affects
us in a lot of different ways and we
look at resting as a very lofty thing
something that
you only get
when you work hard enough as if we have
to earn
chilling
but you don’t
and it’s not a lofty thing you can take
a three-week vacation in the bahamas or
you can just take 15 minutes in the car
the point is to have space that is just
for you
a place to just stop
something that is just yours
and your time
and so
chilling helps us to not only reclaim
our time
but to reclaim ourselves
the grind is going to be there work is
going to be there it’s going to be there
it’s okay
but this is about having time for you so
carve time for you prioritize the time
make space for the chill
and then actually chill
and then don’t feel bad about it
because that time
is just for you
thank you