Megan's Monday Motivation
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Monday, 1/25/21: Talking about lighter Mondays and brightening someone’s day

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, a short story and a roundup of 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 relaxing Saturday morning, being able to run errands with my mom and a catch-up phone call with a best friend. 

TODAY: Today I’m most excited to read my book after work with a glass of wine (received the book as a gift recently and am loving it!).

INTENTION: My intention for this week is to plan out February. 

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

Lesson of the Week: Lighter & Brighter Mondays

It’s the last Monday of the January, which means it’s time for the very first installment of the Lighter & Brighter Series! 

The Lighter and Brighter Series is like a monthly book club… but sans books and focused on happiness and habits. Every other month, a new topic will be introduced on the last Monday of the month (like today) with some ideas on how to make said topic more enjoyable and lighter. If any of it resonates with you, we’ll experiment together during the next month and share feedback on how it’s going. Then, in the month that follows, I’ll feature the reactions, what worked, what didn’t and any new ideas in a newsletter, so we can all learn from one other.

For this first installment, I wanted to pay homage to the intention of this newsletter and focus on pursuing more enjoyable Mondays. Let’s go!

While I’ve always loved the fresh-start-feeling Mondays provide, when thinking about how the pursuit of happier Mondays began for me, I realized it all started with an event countdown app.

Four years ago, in January 2017, I had just returned back to Chicago after being with family for the holidays. Almost eight months had passed since graduating college and my “real world” reality was really sinking in. I missed my friends. I missed things like the familiarity of a course syllabus outlining what comes next.

I was looking for a way to add some positivity to my day, and knowing I had some fun events planned for later that year, I decided to download one of those free event countdown apps. I excitedly typed in the dates of a bachelorette party, a friend’s upcoming visit to Chicago, and the move-in date for when I’d be living in a new apartment with roommates. I thought to myself, I’ll be so excited to look at these countdowns every morning and see the numbers go down!

However, when I saw the starting numbers range from 150 to 250 days, I panicked. Such large numbers! Was I really going to wait 150 days to experience something exciting?

This was a bit of a dramatic thought, but not completely out of the realms of possibility. I knew the days would pass regardless of my attitude and I got a sinking feeling when I thought about how easy it could be to slip into an autopilot mode and just focus on getting to 150 days from now.

I’ve always had a real interest in “the practice of everyday life.” I lose track of time reading “day in the life” or “morning routines” features. I think it’s why I gravitate toward authors like Gretchen Rubin and Laura Vanderkam so much, whose books are all about making small shifts to your everyday life. I find it fascinating. In a world of social media highlight reels filled with lavish vacations and airbrushed photos of perfection, I crave the authenticity of learning how someone spends their time during an extremely ordinary day.

Of course, back in January 2017, I hadn’t yet discovered this about myself or read any of Gretchen’s or Laura’s books. Yet, I had a yearning to experience more joy in my day-to-day life. So, I decided to start small and focus on something that was in my control: my attitude toward an ordinary Monday.

Looking back now, I can connect the dots and spot a few key steps I took in those next 150 ordinary days. Was anything I did revolutionary or groundbreaking? Definitely not. But they are all things that helped me and things that I still do today. (And something must have worked since I’m now spending my free time writing a Monday motivation newsletter 😊).  

In particular, there are three things that standout to me above all else. Because everything is more fun and easier to remember with alliteration, I think of the three things as the three “R’s” for happier Mondays. The three R’s stand for Reflect, Recognize and Riches.
 
1) Reflect: Before I could figure out how to make Mondays more enjoyable, I first needed to study what my current Mondays were like. To do so, I asked myself the following questions:

  1. What are my favorite parts of my Mondays right now?
  2. What are my least favorite parts of my Mondays? And are there any viable solutions to ease these pain points?

When I zeroed in on ordinary Mondays only, something interesting happened. The pressure was lifted and I had to focus on the simple and the small. It’s like when someone asks you what you are most thankful for: many of us automatically respond with answers like family, health, a roof over our head, etc. Because, of course, these are all things we are deeply grateful for. But when the question is rephrased to what’s something you’re thankful for from the last 24 hours, we reach for and appreciate everyday things that we might not have thought of, like a morning cup of coffee, a great book or the text received from a friend.

After zeroing in and reflecting, I had a clearer idea of what I did and did not like about Mondays. I liked the feeling of waking up well rested and picking up a coffee. I didn’t like feeling rushed or instantly feeling behind when I started work for the week. With this intel, I was able make small shifts. For example, I started planning my Monday to-do list on Friday before leaving work, picking out my outfit for work Sunday night (started pre-COVID but still do it while WFH!) and adding in a Starbucks line item to my budget.

Of course, there will always be things we cannot change (2020 certainly taught us that), but with this knowledge, I had a better idea of how to work toward maximizing the good and minimizing the bad.

2) Recognize: In one of her books, Gretchen Rubin includes this excerpt from the journal of artist Eugène Delacroix: “He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried. You would not call such a man rich, neither would I call happy the man who is so without realizing it, or without knowing the extent of his happiness.” And in his book Happiness is the Way, Dr. Wayne Dyer mentions something similar when he writes: “You cannot have an emotion without a thought preceding it… You perceive things in the world, and then you evaluate.”

To experience lighter, happier Mondays, I need to recognize I’m having lighter, happier Mondays.

How? My favorite way to “recognize” is a recognition list. At the end of your Monday, build your own recognition by picking one of the following prompts to write down: three things you are grateful for from the day (more on gratitude here), three things that went well today (my personal favorite prompt… I write more about it here), three things you did well today (picked this one up from Sheryl Sandberg in one of her books) or really any “thing” that speaks to you.
 
The magic lies in knowing you need to come up with this list because you’ll go through your Monday looking for these things instead of defaulting to focusing on what’s going wrong. You’ll recognize you did have an enjoyable Monday and then you’ll feel it too.

3) Riches: This is the fun one. Essentially, it’s the second question posed in the section above. What’s one thing you can be excited about this Monday? What’s one thing that, no matter what else happens this day, will be a positive memory? A few fun ideas of things that could enrich your Monday include:

  • Treating yourself to a coffee
  • Ordering in something delicious for lunch or dinner
  • Reading before work
  • Watching your favorite show
  • Wearing an outfit that makes you feel great

Don’t underestimate the small stuff! As long as it’s exciting to you and brings joy to your Monday, you’re doing this step right.  

What do you think? Are you down to try one or all the three “R’s” this next month and see if they lead to lighter, more enjoyable Mondays? If you do and feel so inclined to share your experience, I’ve set up this anonymous platform to collect feedback. Would love to hear how the above goes or if you have any tips that help you pursue a more enjoyable Monday. I’ll share all that I receive at the end of next month, but until then, hope you have a great Monday!

On My Monday Radar

Sometimes we just aren’t ready to jump into our Monday to-do list right away. In case you want some content to procrastinate with, here is a roundup of a few positive things on my radar:  

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

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