Let’s talk for a minute about hustle, sweet friend. Hustle isn’t a bad word. It’s not a dangerous mindset or a huge pitfall to avoid. It is, however, a slippery slope that we should approach with caution.

Just like we all have different definitions of success, we all have different definitions of hustle. But the most common one I’ve seen is that in order to be successful, to make it or to be of value, we have to hustle. “Hustle until you don’t have to introduce yourself” is a mantra we see all over the place! But we aren’t defining what this “hustle” we speak of really means. We just assume that it’s that endless nose to the grindstone pace that puts so many of us on the edge of breakdown and burnout. That’s the end result of the unfocused hustle, friend. Without fail, we always end up at the intersection of burnout and breakdown.

Don’t get me wrong. You have to work hard in order to bring your dreams to fruition. Businesses worth owning, work worth doing and lives worth pursuing never come easily. We have to be diligent, work hard and commit to making it happen. But that doesn’t mean we should work without focus, without purpose or without intention.

We must be diligent to be fruitful, but if we’re doggedly working towards success with no end in sight, we have to ask ourselves if our approach is truly working. Too many creatives and big dreamers wind up on a one-way road to burnout, physical, emotional and spiritual collapse because they bought into the notion that we must hustle in order to bring our dreams to life. Well, friend, I believe your dreams are too precious to be lost in the endless cycle of hustle, rinse, repeat.

If we focus our efforts, if we purposefully choose to hone in on what it is we’re hustling for, and what specific steps we’re making to bring our vision to life, can you imagine how successful we could be? If we choose to stop working for the sake of work, if we decided to end the glorification of busy, we’d be faced with truly staggering amounts of time that we could then fill with what matters most to us. And it all starts with purpose.

When was the last time you asked yourself what it is exactly that you’re hustling for, friend? If you’re putting your nose to the grindstone simply because that’s how you measure the health of a productive business, or simply because that’s what you see your colleagues doing, then it’s time to pump the brakes. Diligent work begins with a clear purpose, an identifiable and reachable goal, and a series of action steps to bring it to life. Purposeful hustle takes us far beyond what unfocused hustle offers us, and brings up to the very doorstep of greatness.

So why don’t we ditch the old definition of hustle, and instead embrace what my sweet friend Katie Selvidge likes to call, “smart hustle”? Let’s choose to stop hustling for the sake of the hustle, and instead move forward with a clear plan of action to bring your audacious, grand dreams to fruition. Get serious about what it is you’re working towards, intentionally prune away anything that doesn’t get you closer to that goal, and set attainable, actionable goals to get you where you want to go. Who’s with me?