Your side hustle is not a job.

Read that line again.

If you are spending your time what feels like “clocking in” to your side hustle, you are treating it like a job and you are going to burn out.

Your hustle isn’t something you clock into. It’s something you can’t wait to get to at the end of every working day. It’s something you don’t even have to write in your planner to get to because every day you can’t wait to get started on it.

If it is something you have to remind yourself to do, or you have at a scheduled “time” to start clocking in and out of, then you need to step back and think if it really is something you’re passionate about. If you know without a doubt that it is, then what you may be experiencing is full-blown burn out.

Burn out comes when you feel like you’re just running in circles with your business and you feel like no matter what you do, you’re not making progress.

Many business “guru’s” say to just charge through this time because you need to “work harder” and “if you want to be successful you have to be in non-stop hustle mode”!!! And while there are some truths to these in day-to-day life, but when it comes to your passion in life, if you’re feeling the candles being burnt at all ends, you need to stop.

I’m not saying stop forever and give up any dreams of being an entrepreneur. I’m saying grant yourself a weekend off to go do something else. Don’t even think about your business at all. Get outside of yourself and your problems.

Trying to figure out your problems when you’re already burning out is like trying to resist when you’re caught in a wave. The more you flail, the harder it is going to be to get out. Sometimes you just need a few days off to renew yourself.

Yes, this goes against every single success “guru” and their advice for starting entrepreneurs. They believe you should ignore every warning sign your body is trying to send you, miss every important family event, and never sleep again in order to be successful.

Here at Rethink the Rulebook, we don’t go with the “typical” advice. We know that we’re not trying to replace one job where we already don’t have enough free time with another job that makes us feel just as burned out. We realize that in the grand scheme of things, one weekend off from your hustle in a whole month isn’t going to make the whole world collapse on your business. Stepping away from your problems can bring you greater clarity in the long run.

Take a weekend off, then get back to hustling hard. It will only make things better in the long run. Plus, you only have one life, why not have a little fun?