Monday, 3/30/20: Talking about muscle memory, an online challenge and a social distancing care package

Happy Monday!

Yes, it’s Monday 🙂 And that 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 zoom family happy hours, finding a great new book and being able to go on walks outside. (Reminder, I’ll be sharing a daily gratitude list on my Instagram story all week!)

TODAY: I am most excited about using the new coffee maker we purchased yesterday!!

INTENTION: My intention for this week is to do the “Five to Thrive” each day as part of the “Next 90 Days” challenge (more below!). Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Lesson of the Week: Building Muscle Memory

I heard something last week that reframed my thinking about the unique situation we find ourselves in now. 

A podcast I listened to talked about tech entrepreneur Ben Horowitz and his book (The Hard Things About Hard Things), which discusses the idea of wartime CEOs vs. peacetime CEOs.

I haven’t read Ben’s book, but from what I gather, the general premise is that a certain type of leader is needed when all is going well and a different type of leader is needed when everything is going sideways. It’s a thought-provoking idea and interesting contrast.

Like many of you, work is feeling pretty stressful right now. Assisting with crisis communications and mitigation for a national grocer currently means intense, around-the-clock, impactful work (and nothing compared to the actual employees in the store or the heroic medical professionals in our communities… to all of you, THANK YOU!).

I’m learning a ton and working with one of the best teams around, but I’ve had my moments of overwhelm and burnout. 

Chatting on the phone with one of my co-workers, I filled her in on how I was feeling and she responded with a similar story. For some comic relief, we started sarcastically reminding each other of what used to stress us out at work, before all of this. Each thing we listed felt so trivial in comparison to what we were dealing with now. 

After we hung up, I pondered if we would one day be stressed by those silly things again. Or, are we building up somewhat of a resilience? When one of those silly things comes up in the future, will our muscle memory kick in and remind ourselves of what we’re capable of? 

Relating the wartime vs. peacetime CEO idea to my own professional life, I thought about being a “peacetime” employee. I know how to succeed in times of peace. It’s easy to support a winning team, especially when I have adequate time to train, ask thoughtful questions and define expectations.

But it’s a whole different ball game right now. And while periodic feelings of stress and overwhelm are bound to happen, what if this is also an opportunity to prove to myself that I can survive (and maybe even thrive) as a “wartime” employee? Additionally, if I seize that opportunity and show myself I can survive as a wartime employee, I’m actively building the muscle memory I’ll call upon in future situations and expanding my thinking around what I’m able to handle.

Going outside of work, I think this idea can be applied to a variety of facets in our lives: our commitment to keeping certain habits, the person we are in relationships with family, friends and loved ones, the way we treat ourselves, etc. 

If we can make the effort to show up as our best selves amidst the current circumstances, just imagine what we can do in “peacetime” circumstances.

So this week, I encourage you to look for the moments of joy, be the friend/daughter/sister you strive to be, do the workout and crush it at work. Deciding to thrive in just one of these areas is going to build your muscle memory around how strong you are and what you are able to handle. I know you’ve got this! 

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:  

• Podcast Episode about Working From Home. This podcast episode was the inspiration for this week’s newsletter. I absolutely loved the conversation between Rachel Hollis and Amy Porterfield with tips about adjusting to working remotely. Highly recommended listening if you are also navigating the new normal of working out of your home.  
• Next 90 Days Challenge. Also mentioned in the podcast above is an online challenge starting today called the “Next 90 Days.” If you are looking for something to hold you accountable, this virtual challenge could be just the thing. It’s a twist on the annual challenge put on by Rachel Hollis and her company in the last three months of the year called “Last 90 Days.” For the challenge, you commit to doing five things (the “Five to Thrive”) every day to build strong habits in a time when you might be lacking motivation (typically the holidays and due to current events, right now). Check out the website or this podcast episode from October of last year if you want to learn more.
• Social Distancing Online Care Package. Check out this social distancing care package prepared by Girls’ Night In, a self-care email newsletter delivered every Friday (love an email newsletter!!). The social distancing online care package is interactive and features tons of resources and ideas for staying in and taking care of yourself. 
• In Five Years. If you are looking for a distraction, read this book!! I started it this weekend and was instantly captivated. It’s an easy read, the plot moves quickly and I honestly have no idea how it is going to end. But it won’t be long until I find out because I can’t put it down!   

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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