Monday, 9/9/24: Talking about what’s challenging, improving & working

Happy Monday!

It’s a new week, which means it’s time for your next Monday motivation newsletter.

Read on below for some steps to a happier Monday and some positive thoughts to get your week started.

Three Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three prompts to inspire gratitude and simple intention setting. Take a moment and jot down answers to these three questions. To give an example, I share my answers below.  

Step 1: What are three things I appreciated from the weekend? 

Step 2: What is one thing I can be excited about today?

Step 3: What is my intention for this week? 

GRATITUDE: From my weekend, I am thankful for a catch-up phone call with my mom, time to run errands and the enjoyable, fall-like weather! 

TODAY: Today, I’m most excited for some quiet time this morning.

INTENTION: My intention this week is to focus on being present – so excited to see some of my favorite people later this week!

Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Meaningful Musings: Challenging, Improving, Working

Happy Monday! I’m back this morning with an exercise I’ve done before and something I like to ask myself from time to time… especially at the start of a new season. 

The premise is simple: you make a list of what’s challenging right now, what’s improving and what’s working. Taking a step back and naming what’s hard – as well as pushing yourself to identify what’s also going well – is a helpful framing technique. It can be all too easy to focus on what’s not working, but it’s also comforting and reassuring to remind ourselves of progress and small wins! 

Sharing this morning in case it prompts you to do a similar reflection at the start of this new week. Let’s do this!

What’s challenging? 

Not having a weekly planning routine I love. What I’m really yearning for is some kind of weekly planning ritual. I have great visions of myself sitting down on a Sunday or Monday morning, lighting a candle and turning to a system that helps me capture what my schedule looks like for the week, what my priorities are and what needs to get done. Right now, I’m keeping to-do lists in too many places, including a lot in my head and not on paper. Without a clear, go-to list and without designating when I’ll tackle tasks, things feel unnecessarily chaotic. Whenever I get a free moment, I feel like I should be cramming something in. Not enjoyable from an experience standpoint and not very helpful from a productivity standpoint either! September feels like the perfect month to focus on cultivating a new system! I am all ears if you have a weekly planning routine that works for you!

Wanting more breaks throughout the day. Taking better and more frequent breaks is one of my 2024 goals – both in the sense of being more intentional about the time I take off work (fewer one-off days in favor of longer stretches of time) and building in more breaks to my every day. I think I’ve done a decent job on the first part, but the second part (the everyday breaks) is what I want to focus on! I enjoy being in a state of go-go-go, but I’m also realizing that moving slowly, intentionally and thoughtfully has merit as well. I think even just committing to sitting still for 5 minutes/day – without looking at my phone, emails, the TV, a podcast app – could have a profound impact with how I move through the day and how I FEEL throughout the day.

Missing my morning reading time. Something has happened recently and I’m not reading in the morning as much as I used to. It might be because I’ve added some early morning workout classes to my weekly routine or because i’m prioritizing other tasks, but I miss my early morning reading sessions! I still read most evenings before bed, but at night I read fiction books, whereas in the morning I’m usually reaching for something non-fiction. This means the number of non-fiction books I’ve read this year is much lower than years previously and I feel it!! I love reading non-fiction books – I draw a lot of inspiration from them and want to build that back into my routine a couple mornings a week… or maybe even as a break throughout the day (see above point 😉 )…?  

What’s improving?

Finally having a personal laptop!! So excited about this. After hemming and hawing for a while, Matt and I decided last week to purchase a ‘home’ computer for both of us to use for non-work tasks. This past weekend was the first time I closed my laptop on a Friday afternoon and put it away completelyuntil Monday morning, reaching for my personal laptop throughout the weekend for life tasks and to do things like writing this newsletter. I think this is a going to be a great way to designate work time vs. non-work time and I’m excited!!

New budget tracker. As I’ve written about previously, I get a lot out of manually tracking every expense and purchase in a spreadsheet. However, with a few changes in the past month (new account, new credit card), I decided to make a new spreadsheet and system for tracking expenses Sept-Dec. There is something so motivating about a ‘clean slate’ of a fresh spreadsheet and I’m enjoying it!! 

What’s working?   

Getting ready for bed earlier. I love getting up early to enjoy a quiet morning. But in order to do that, I need to be in bed early the night before. This usually is not a problem – I love going to bed! – BUT I have learned that I absolutely will procrastinate going to bed if it is late and I haven’t gotten ready for bed (wash face, brush teeth, etc.). If I’m comfortable on the couch and tired, the LAST thing I want to do is get up and go through the whole process. However, once I figured this out, the solution was shockingly simple: get ready for bed earlier. Now, I have a time that is my “deadline” for being ready for bed. It is a time that is way before I plan to go to bed. And after getting ready, I’m usually headed back to the couch to finish a TV show with Matt, but OMG does it make it easier to actually get into bed on time when your face is already washed and teeth already brushed!! I definitely feel like I’m sleeping more and that in turn just makes everything better. 

Having experiences planned to look forward to. I recently printed out blank calendars for September to December and filled them out with everything I know is on the radar for the rest of the year. I was struck by what a fun couple of months are ahead. I have friends coming in town for my bachelorette weekend this weekend, my mom visiting in early October, a family wedding we’re going to in mid-October and then of course holidays and our wedding!! I love having events to look forward to, and having those things on the calendar make me thankful for more routine weeks as well.  

What’s challenging, improving and working in your life right now? Would love to know! 

Picture of the Week

That’s all for today! I hope you found something in today’s newsletter that sparked motivation, made you smile or inspired a positive Monday thought. Don’t underestimate the power of starting small… a fulfilling week starts with just one fulfilling day. You’ve got this! 

Let’s make it a great Monday!
Megan