Somebody’s got a Case of the Mondays
How was your Monday?
It’s that dreaded day of the week for many. When my business used to be my sole form of work (before adding two jobs to make ends meet, more recently) I never really didn’t fear Monday. I looked forward to starting the week fresh and making progress on new projects, talking with clients, etc. Working for someone else has changed that perspective a bit.
My first side job was for Trader Joe’s, as a crew member in the store. As people who work in retail know, your weekends are generally never the traditional ” Saturday & Sunday” that the majority of the workforce enjoys. You’ve either been handed a couple midweek days or in my case, a split, one day off here and another somewhere else in the week. So Mondays were really not my Mondays. But the air in the store changed on Mondays, the customers coming in had a different feeling to them in general. It was an interesting phenomena to me to see this ‘cloud’ hang over people just because it was a particular day of the week.
It’s astonishing to me how many people cringe when it comes to the idea of work on Monday. So many of us are in a job we either hate, or just “pays the bills,” or is a stepping stone where we really want to be. Deep within each of us there is a dream (or a few), an idea of something we want to do with our lives. Something we feel, will be our greatest contribution to the general population, festers in our hearts, until we free it or squash it. It’s extremely hard to acknowledge our dream and pursue it. How are we supposed to balance making ends meet now with pursuing our life’s purpose(s)?
There’s a fire that is kindled within you when you commit to following your dreams and it challenges you in ways you never thought of. One of those challenges is working your “day job” while working on your dream job on the side. Shifting gears back and forth is hard. We are creatures who love to indulge pleasure and working on your dreams kind of feels like the weekend that comes before Monday. It can be hard to balance going back to the job that isn’t necessarily your ideal. It doesn’t even have to be a bad job, it’s just not your dream job and that makes things difficult because once you’ve awoken that dream, it’s like Pandora’s box – it can make your current job, by comparison, feel like something you are muddling through. It’s hard to just “get the job done” at work sometimes when you have so many ideas bursting through as you pursue your dream.
However if you choose positivity as your daily practice you can look at your current job as exactly where you are meant to be at this moment. You’re meant to learn something right now. It’s challenging you to grow and go after what you really want. If nothing else it’s teaching you humility as you wait for your plans to unfold.
I am working on reframing Monday in my mind as the day of “starting.” Ask yourself:
What do I want to acheive this week?
What personal or professional goals can I work toward this week?
How can I rise above the stigma of Monday?
How can I be the best version of myself today/this week?
When I look at it that way it fuels creativity and good feelings within me. (Now I just need to get through the rest of the week! Ha Ha.)
Hope you had a great Monday. Mine went by fast, was good, bad and a little ugly at one point, but it was a start to an exciting week. I look forward to seeing what tomorrow will hold. Let me know your thoughts!
