Hard Work doesn't have to be "Hard"

This post is a direct follow up to a previous entry: How my perception of ‘hard work’ activated my CPTSD as a lingering effect of Narcissistic Abuse.

In that post, I talked about how I have been wanting to ‘level up’ in the sense of creating some cushion in my abilities to earn, yet have felt very conflicted because historically I have been conditioned to associate ‘hard work’ with doing something I don’t necessarily want to do.

I really wanted to change that association. I was tired of bartering with myself every week- "am I going to do a third shift? Should I go in tonight?" and then coming up with tons of excuses not to, followed by beating myself up over it. I wanted to heal that part of me that activated the flashbacks, negative talk-tracks, and limiting beliefs that ‘hard work’ was hard because it hurt, required sacrifice, and was for someone else.

So I chose to.

I took my own advice, and because I had been tracking my patterns, I was able to approach the idea of ‘hard work’ differently. The shift of perspective was much easier than I realized, but I knew the execution was going to be the tricky part. Something I learned in my time in corporate sales was that “people lie, but numbers don’t”. So I looked at the numbers…

I decided that while yes, more shifts equals more revenue, and the general goal was to work another day a week, the larger goal was to hit a few financial markers that were important to me.

There are so many ways to set a goal, and so many ways to approach achieving it. A lot of people will tell you to make a S.M.A.R.T. goal, (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) but to me, it felt like doing homework for my homework. I thought about the saying “how do you eat an elephant? -one bite at a time” and then I realized that when I simplified the goal into bite-sized pieces, it managed to check all the boxes of a ’S.M.A.R.T.” goal, anyway.

I wanted to max a retirement contribution, pay my taxes in full, and not carry a balance on a credit card. Collectively, that goal was to earn X amount of dollars. One way to achieve the goal without adding more workdays was to simply sell higher ticketed items, (read: VIP rooms) which would require more energy, and had a higher margin of error. That felt too similar to the ‘hard work hurts’ mentality, so was an immediate no for me. The other approach was; “If I have been consistently earning X amount of dollars per hour, how many hours do I need to work to reach my goal?” That felt like a small enough bite I could repeat over and over. I did the math, and found I would need to work 32 hours which, divided by my average shift length of 8 hours- was 4 additional shifts. And then I realized- four additional shifts a month… That’s where my third shift a week is going to come in.

But which day was going to be my third shift? The first thought was to add Sunday’s because it would lower my expenses (cheaper house fees), but I knew how exhausted my body already was after a weekend, and the pressure I was putting on myself to show up at my most exhausted activated the “hard work hurts” emotions- so that was also a ‘no’. Then I thought to add a weekday because it would also lower my expenses, with the probability of less girls working, which meant more opportunities on stage. I also chose against that because I didn't want to overwork my body, and I value the consistency in my already abnormal sleep schedule, and enjoy what sunshine I do get.

In the end, I decided to add my third day to the beginning of my work week, (Thursday) rather than the end, and I treated it like a warm up, rather than a final push. This mentality allowed me to feel less pressure with adding the additional day. If I treated it like a warm up, it wasn't 'hard' work. which made it easier to remove the connotations I had associated with ‘hard work’ by just agreeing with myself to simply show up.

And you won’t believe what happened…

On my first Thursday I had a record-breaking stage set 30 minutes before close- which set the tone for a fantastic weekend. By the time Saturday rolled around, I had made two week’s of money in three days. The second Thursday, I sold an after-hours VIP room. I was on track to hit my goal, exceeding the ‘hourly average’ I used to calculate the goal to begin with. And while yes I was tired, I was also sleeping very well knowing the effort was worth it.

Things changed on the third Thursday though, and I had the lowest earning shift since 2024. I was not happy about it. The weekend as a whole was incredibly underwhelming, but that third shift made a difference. Thursday and Friday combined averaged what I’d expect to earn in a Friday, and then Saturday was just slightly below normal. The Thursday, while being awful, buffered the weekend and was the difference between an okay week and a terrible one. It was a very ‘forest for the trees’ moment.

When the Final Thursday rolled around, I was beat. I told myself to show up just for the sake of showing up. I even walked around the club telling my coworkers “I’m just here so I don’t get fined”. While it was better than the previous week, it was nothing to write home about, until I looked at the numbers...

At the conclusion of my experiment, I learned that while I did come up short on my ‘Thursday earnings’ goals- by 24%- I successfully earned 63% more overall than I did the previous month working Friday and Saturday exclusively. Overall, 63% is nothing to bat an eye at. Was it that I had more momentum rolling into the weekend that led to the success? I don't know, maybe. What was also interesting to see, was that my Earnings Per Hour averaged within $0.90 of the previous two months, which told me I am consistent in my earnings, even when thrown a curveball like the ‘worst shift in a year’. 

 

I’d say that my biggest takeaway was that I learned those limiting beliefs regarding hard work and ‘third days’ were really just made up stories I was replaying in my mind, and I had been making it unnecessarily more difficult for myself. I found that the specific earnings goal tied to the collective Thursday’s was effective because I wasn't asking something of myself that I had never done before, I was just asking myself to show up and trust that I had the skills necessary to make it happen. A big difference from the past was that there was no punishment for not achieving the goal, only wins. This experiment allowed me to see the direct result of the work I was putting in, and the ‘hardest work’ I had to accomplish was literally just showing up. And yes, some days were better than others, but isn’t that the same for any job?

 

If you're a Stripper/SWorker and  want to start tracking your patterns, you can get your own tracker journal HERE. It's a 6-month, undated, spiral notebook that doesn't just track your earnings patterns, but also your behavioral ones, too.

 

xoxo,c

**P.S. I'm only just realizing now that I added thursday as my thirdday and I think that's kinda cute.