Monday, 11/4/19: Talking about being a better listener, losing my wallet and making friends as an adult

Happy Monday!

It’s another new week and another Monday, 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 Tactical Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three steps for 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 the friends I’ve made in Chicago, our fun Saturday night (even though our college football teams lost their games) and having a delicious home-cooked meal on Sunday with great company.  

TODAY: Today I am most excited about having no plans after work. I have a pretty packed schedule this week so tonight is going to be my night to chill, recharge and get ready for what’s to come. I’m planning on cooking a healthy dinner and am ready to play catchup with some Bravo TV shows (can’t wait!). 

INTENTION: My intention for this week is to be a better listener. Sometimes I get caught up in telling my own stories and thinking of my next comment when conversing with others. This causes me to not concentrate as much on what the other person is saying. I am excited to challenge myself this week to listen more than I speak. Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂 

Lesson of the Week: Circumstances + Emotions = Problems

I woke up last Monday more excited than usual. It was the first time this newsletter was being sent out! My eyes snapped open when my alarm went off at 5:10 am (central time) and I quickly grabbed my phone, checked my email and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the newsletter was in my own inbox. Minutes later, I got my first confirmation that the distribution list worked because my grandma (hi, Gram!) texted me confirming receipt of her newsletter. I jumped out of bed energized by the fact this was now out in the universe. This was going to be the best Monday ever!!

Fast forward 30ish minutes later, I was on the bus headed to my morning workout class. Quick pause – I feel the need to have a disclaimer with that statement. You need to know that I’ve been a morning person as long as I can remember and I bow down to those who can workout in the evening/after work. I am sharpest in the morning and start deteriorating promptly at 6 PM. Lol. Owning my love of morning workouts is me exercising my intention from last week (“Being Megan” :)). 

I got off the bus, headed to the barre studio and started putting my things away in my locker. My purse felt unusually light so I took a peek inside… and discovered my entire wallet had disappeared. 

Yep. Sometime between the time I took my wallet out to scan my Ventra card on the bus at 5:40 and when I put my purse away at 5:50, it had vanished. The studio didn’t have it, the bus driver (we’re on a first-name basis now) didn’t find it, CTA lost and found didn’t have it, it wasn’t on the street between the bus stop and the studio and it wasn’t in any of my pockets or crevices of my purse. 

The wallet was gone. This meant I was now without any credit card, ATM card, license, Ventra card, work ID badge, a Starbucks gift card from my grandma and a lucky $40. All before 6 am on Monday. 

NO! I thought. This is my perfect Monday!! WHY did this happen?!

But then, I had another thought. With texts coming in from friends about the newsletter, I thought, what if this is happening because of the newsletter? If this is happening for the newsletter, what is meaning I can find in this situation? 

I remembered something I heard Jess Keys, a Chicago-based blogger, say many months ago on her Instagram story (side note, you need to follow Jess! More on her below). Jess had been at a conference and she quoted a speaker (can’t remember the original source) who said that circumstances turn into problems when you attach emotions to them. In the absence of emotions, circumstances are only circumstances. 

Circumstances + Emotions = Problems

Circumstances – Emotions = Circumstances 

It is such a simple formula and I cannot tell you how many times I think of it. It prevents me from spinning into unnecessary tizzies when I receive client feedback at work, when my flight is delayed and, most recently, when I lost my wallet on a Monday morning. 

The formula helps me identify the emotions I am feeling (like anger, frustration, annoyance, sadness) and detach them from the circumstances out of my control. When you pull those emotions away and clearly focus on only the circumstances, you really do feel the weight of the problem being lifted off your shoulders. 

In the instance of my wallet, I acknowledged that this was an annoying and highly inconvenient way to start my week, but looking at just the circumstances, I calmly identified the list of items I needed to replace, how I would go about getting the replacements and how I was going to solve for the in-between time without items like an ID or credit card.

And just like that, the “problem” turned into “just circumstances.” And circumstances don’t stand a chance to steal the joy of my perfect Monday. 🙂 

We are not in control of the circumstances that lay ahead of us this Monday. But we are in control of how we react to them. We are in control of allowing some circumstances to stay just circumstances instead of escalating into problems. What if today you tried using this formula when you feel those not-so-good feelings creeping in? 

If this formula resonates with you or if you have another tip that helps you protect your Monday joy, I would love to hear about it! 

Oh, and I recommend you learn from me and not keep all your cards in the same wallet. 🙂 

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 but don’t want to scroll Instagram again, here is a roundup of five positive things on my radar:  

• This blog post from Jess about making friends in a new city. Making friends as an adult can be so awkward, right? As someone who moved from Florida to Chicago three years ago, I’ve definitely had experience with navigating making friends as an adult. I’ll do a longer “lesson” on this in a later newsletter, but in short, it can definitely be uncomfortable at times, but those uncomfortable times have hands down helped me grow as a person the most. Plus, I now have some very special people in my life that I may not have ever known! Maybe you’ve recently moved to a new city or know someone who has that would benefit from reading Jess’ blog post. Jess shares her own experience with navigating change and includes a really good roundup of tips crowdsourced from readers. And, if you are looking to add positivity to your Instagram, I would recommend following Jess. I love her content, which is dubbed “real girl advice for living your best life.”  
• Check out this “curated care packages” company. I actually had the chance to meet Jess in person last week. She hosted an event all about making friends as an adult (inspiration for the point above!) and she was exactly the same as her online persona – down-to-earth and relatable. I was definitely nervous about going alone, but it ended up being a really fun night and so refreshing to be in a room full of women who all agreed that it is really hard to make friends. Reminder that it is not just you – everyone feels like this! The event was in partnership with a company called “Small Packages,” which is a company makes and sends curated care packages tailored to different themes (like celebrating engagements and job promotions or comforting someone after a breakup). Love this idea so much! A lot of times making new friends can make me miss having my best friends that don’t live near me. I feel so grateful for these friendships and want to be better at investing and maintaining them. My friends are scattered all over now and I love the idea of sending them some type of care package to let them know I am thinking about them. So much better than the usual text or a card. 
• Have you ever thought about using the extra hour we just got with Daylight Saving Time for something other than sleeping in? I recently heard Gretchen Rubin speak and I’m currently reading her Better than Before book about habits. In either the talk or the book, she mentioned the idea of using the extra hour we just got with Daylight Saving Time as a way to add something to your morning routine. If you’ve been wanting to adopt a morning routine that includes some “me time” before your day begins, maybe consider continuing to get up at your normal time instead of using that extra hour to sleep in. By the way, was anyone else convinced that it was Daylight Savings Time and not Daylight Saving Time? Guess I’ve been saying it wrong until now. 🙂 
• This Halloween Instagram post. I cannot believe it SNOWED on Halloween in Chicago. As someone from Florida, I just didn’t know that was possible and felt so bad for kids having put jackets over Halloween costumes!! I thought Kelly from “Kelly in the City” did it best. Her daughter is obsessed with Frozen, dressed up as Elsa for Halloween and was totally convinced that she caused the snow in Chicago. Isn’t that amazing?! Moms are pretty great at making the most of situations like that. 🙂   
• This two-week Holiday Simplicity Challenge. I’m a big fan of the Simplified company by Emily Ley. I love using her planners and really enjoyed reading her book A Simplified Life. Through Instagram, her team is doing their first-ever Holiday Simplicity Challenge. Each day for the next two weeks, the Simplified team will be posting a step that will get you ready/organized for the holiday season. Each step is – you guessed it – simple and takes 15 minutes or less!

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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