Megan's Monday Motivation
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Monday, 2/15/21: Talking about a gift for loved ones and showing up for ourselves

Happy Monday!

Whether you are working or off today, it’s another new week and 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 time to relax and rest, the new book I started reading and a fun purchase I made on Sunday. 

TODAY: Today I’m most excited about having the day off work. Have a few things on my to-do list to complete, but I’m looking forward to getting organized and centered before a busy week. 

INTENTION: My intention for this week is to stay calm when handling whatever may pop up this week at work. 

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

Lesson of the Week: A Gift For Loved Ones

Do you ever read or hear something and immediately – and without effort – it becomes committed to memory?

I love when this happens. It feels like it’s God’s or the Universe’s way of underlining something for me and telling me to pay attention.
 
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and although it was a different Valentine’s Day than previous years, it was still a day filled with gift giving and expressing appreciation for loved ones. Thinking about this, I was reminded of something I heard once and automatically committed to memory. I can’t remember where, but sometime in 2019, I heard the following quote attributed to an executive coach named Khalid Halim:
 

“The greatest gift you can give the people you love is the gift of your own well-being.”
When I first heard this, I was skeptical. I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. Did it seem counterintuitive? Wanting to see if I could prove the idea wrong, I considered how it could apply to my own life, and I quickly found an example to prove its validity.

I knew barely a handful of people when I first moved to Chicago after graduating college. But then, a few months into living there, I found out that a best friend from home would be moving to Chicago by chance and I was elated. It felt like a godsend! For the next three years, we had so much fun frolicking around a new-to-us city and stumbling our way into our mid-twenties. When I first heard Halim’s quote a few years ago, this friend had just made the decision to move back home to Florida. And I found that this quote succinctly summed up everything I was feeling: a sadness about what was coming to an end, but more prominently, an overpowering feeling of excitement for her and her next chapter.

Before this quote, I was confused how I could hold space for both of these emotions at the same time, but then I understood. This move was so clearly the next best step for her and her own well-being, and that’s all one can want for a close friend.

Inspired by this example, I started to think about how I could better invest in my well-being, and to be completely honest, this was something that was a lot easier to think about in 2019. Now that we’re almost a year into a pandemic, does the idea still ring true? What about the working mom who’s going on her 11th month of juggling professional responsibilities and virtual learning? Or the frontline and healthcare workers whose days demand nonstop, urgent, extremely important work? How can one expect anyone to add something to their list right now?

All of our realities are filled with different challenges and circumstances, so I certainly don’t know the answer or solution for you. But for me, I know that just as a I need to charge my electronics every day in order to use them, I also need to find ways to “recharge” myself.

It’s not always something that’s easy to remember and the perfect opportunity is not always available. But I know it’s important and that something is always better than nothing, especially right now, when our worlds are turned upside down. As Gretchen Rubin often writes, a “Secret of Adulthood” is that “if I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself.” 

I also appreciate Halim’s focus on the word well-being, which is defined as “a good or satisfactory condition of existence.” I like the emphasis on aiming to feel good not great. Satisfactory not outstanding or perfect. It takes some of the pressure off. Maybe all you have time for is a few minutes of stretching or quickly reading something fun or sitting quietly for five minutes before your next task. As long as it’s making you feel good, something is better than nothing. 

Lastly, this quote makes me reflect on if I’m doing the best I can at supporting others in pursuit of their own well-being. Am I making it easier or harder? As St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “To love is to will the good of the other.”

After a holiday weekend all about love, how can we keep showing love for others and for ourselves through our actions this week? 

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:  

  • Loved this quick (14-minute!) discussion about showing up for yourself. The podcast episode features a conversation with Rachel Wilkerson Miller, author of The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People. The episode felt very relevant to include today as Miller’s whole message focuses on how you can’t fully show up for the people in your life until you know how to do the same for yourself. Her tip for where to start? Conduct an audit over the course of a week to see where you spend your time, money and energy. A few months ago, I did a time-tracking experiment of my own and found it to be very beneficial  for learning more about how I spent my time. Of course, I didn’t magically discover a way to add an extra hour to every day, but I did challenge some of my perceptions and identify some simple changes I could make for a more enjoyable day.  
  • Enjoyed Grace’s blog post about “Social Media Free Sundays.” I don’t know about you, but with working from home and being so plugged in to technology during the week, I find myself craving a break from the screens during the weekend. The issue is, the more I am plugged in, the more likely I am to pick up my phone and mindlessly scroll on social or check emails just out of habit. So, I love this simple idea of setting aside one full day to give myself a break from social media. Feels like a great way to invest in your well-being!
  • Have you read the book or watched the new Firefly Lane series on Netflix? I just saw that Netflix came out with an adaption of Kristin Hannah’s novel Firefly Lane. According to the book’s description, the plot spans more than three decades and is “the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.” Sounds so good! I’m trying to decide if I should read the book first or just start with the series, so let me know if you have read and/or watched! 
  • Finished this humorous, cute novel that was full of heart and family secrets this week. Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel follows a woman who is a professional classical musician with grown children as she navigates her next act both personally and professionally. As one of my favorite fiction authors Taylor Jenkins Reid said, the writing is “quick-witted and razor-sharp” and I enjoyed having something easy and light to read.

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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