Somewhere between the girl boss era and the soft life aesthetic, ambition became something women feel like they have to hide.

I’ve watched it happen in real time. In the content that floods my feed. In the women who come to work with me and show me one version of their business publicly, and then tell me the real version behind closed doors. In the shame I’ve felt myself — and I’ve been brainwashed by this narrative too, I’m not exempt — when my life didn’t look like the effortless, linen-clad, chicken-feeding version of success the internet decided was the goal.

This post is my pushback. Because hustle culture gets a bad name. And what we lose when we make drive something to apologize for is more than most people are willing to say out loud.

What the Soft Life Narrative Is Actually Saying to Ambitious Women

I want to read you something. These are real quotes — pulled from posts, blogs, website copy, and podcast interviews from people in the business space. Names you’d probably recognize.

“The most resilient people I know are not the busiest people I know. They are calm, grounded, rested, connected, and deeply at peace with themselves.”

“Reconnect with the woman you were before hustle culture told you your worth was tied to your productivity.”

“For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.”

When I compiled these, I did not feel good. I did not feel seen or met with compassion.

I felt shame.

Because if the most resilient people are calm and grounded and rested — then what does that make me? I’m vibrant. I’m loud. I’m unapologetic. I record podcast episodes from my car because it fills my cup. I open my laptop at night because I genuinely love what I do. I am not the aesthetic these quotes are selling. And for a long time, I thought that meant something was wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with me. And there is nothing wrong with you.

How Hustle Culture Actually Became a Problem — and What Replaced It

Here’s the honest version of how we got here.

We had the girl boss era. Everyone was owning their drive, their ambition, their grind. And it was beautiful in a lot of ways. But people burned out. That’s real. High-functioning burnout is real, and it was happening to a lot of women who had tied their worth entirely to what they were producing.

So the pendulum swung. Hard.

Suddenly it was the soft life. Slow down. Do less. If your success requires effort, you’re doing it wrong. The ideal became effortless — the farm aesthetic, the linen jumpsuit, the chickens, the sourdough. And the message underneath all of it was: real success looks like zero strain.

The problem is that’s not true. And pretending it is has created a new kind of damage.

The shame around what it actually takes to build a business is now cannibalizing women’s creativity. It’s slowing their momentum. It’s making them emotionally unstable in the face of the normal ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship. Because when you’re spending energy hiding the reality of your work life, you have less of it for the actual work.

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“There is a difference between burnout and drive. One of the things that causes burnout is when we allow our ambition to become morally judged.”

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The Gap Between What Women Entrepreneurs Show and What They Tell Me

I have worked with some of the most extraordinary women over the past eight years. And I cannot tell you how often I see the same pattern.

The front-facing brand says: I run my business in 10 to 15 hours a week. The session says: I’m working 60 hours and I’m exhausted and I don’t know how to talk about that without feeling like I’m failing.

I’m not calling those women out. I’m calling out the culture that made them feel like they had to perform a version of their business that wasn’t true.

And I’m owning my part in it too. I have said things in and around this narrative. I have been brainwashed into thinking that the more I could accomplish in less time, the more successful I was. I have rejected my own truth to share the truth I thought would get the least backlash.

That ends here.

What Rest Actually Looks Like for High-Achieving Women

Here’s a question I want you to sit with.

Have you ever taken time off — actually stepped away from your work — and only felt more anxious? More overwhelmed? Like something was wrong with you because slowing down made things worse, not better?

Yeah. Me too.

The idea that rest means sitting still and doing less is not universal. For high-achieving women, for women with ADHD, for women who are genuinely energized by their work — forced stillness can feel like deprivation, not restoration.

What actually restores you is the most important thing you can figure out about yourself. For me, it’s creative work. It’s connection. It’s moving my body. It’s doing something that feels like mine. That fills my cup in a way that sitting on a couch scrolling never will.

I celebrate every achievement I make — big, small, in between. That’s a form of rest for me. The recognition. The pause. The acknowledgment that something happened here.

Your version of rest doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. It just has to actually restore you.

The Sick Kid Call — And What the Self-Coaching Loop Looks Like in Real Life

I want to give you a real example of what this looks like in practice. Because I’m not just teaching this — I’m living it.

I had one hour left in a genuinely productive day. Two podcast episodes to record. I was in the zone. And then I got the call every mom dreads: your son is sick.

Everything shut down. I had to go.

And I’m not going to lie and say I was immediately grateful for the flexibility of entrepreneurship. I was stressed. I had a commitment to my editor. I had momentum I didn’t want to lose. Both things were true at once.

Here’s what I did instead of spiraling.

First, I regulated. Got out of my head and into my body. Found something in the moment to physically ground me.

Then I reflected with compassion. Of course you’re stressed. You had a commitment. You were in the zone. You care about your son and you care about your work. Both of those things are allowed to be true.

Then I asked what was actually true. And once I was regulated and had given myself compassion, the solutions were right there. Wake up an hour early. Have my husband take over tonight. Record downstairs. Options I couldn’t see when I was in panic mode.

That is the self-coaching loop. That is regulation in practice. Not an aesthetic. Not a vibe. A skill you build so that when life lives, you don’t lose yourself in it.

Stop Apologizing for Your Ambition

I am proud of what I have built.

I’m proud of the perfectionism, the ADHD, the drive, the relentlessness that made it possible. My family traveled the world for three years. I grew up never getting on a plane with my family. Never. And I built something that made that possible.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I wish I’d done it differently. I’m not going to perform a version of my life that looks more effortless than it is to make someone else comfortable.

And I don’t think you should either.

Are there times when you need to reconcile how much you’re working? Yes. Are there times when success needs to be redefined so your values and your drive are actually in alignment? Absolutely. I’m not arguing against that.

What I’m arguing against is the idea that ambition is the problem. That the drive is what needs to be fixed. That your worth is tied to how effortless you can make it look.

The shame around how you’re actually running your business is the thing causing burnout. Not the work itself.

So here’s what I want to leave you with.

You are allowed to define success on your own terms. You are allowed to have seasons that are full and hard and exhausting and also completely chosen. You are allowed to love your work and your kids and your life without ranking them or apologizing for any of them.

Hustle is not a dirty word. It’s how a lot of extraordinary things get built.

And if you’ve been hiding your drive because the internet told you to — this is your permission to stop.

🎧 This is Episode 191 of the Shamelessly Ambitious Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

xx, Ash

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