I used to hate Mondays!
In fact, my favorite coffee mug (and my favorite tagline) said “Mondays suck.” And if you know the song ‘Just Another Manic Monday’ by the Bangles (sorry for the blast from the past), it was my theme song.
I was miserable on Mondays.
In truth, it was worse: The dread started on Sunday afternoon. I used to call this condition the “Sunday Scaries.” My Monday blues were taking over my life.
THEN one day – admittedly, probably a Wednesday, when I got far enough from Monday – my higher self (or my highest lower self) got to thinking about WHY I hated Mondays so much.
What I discovered was quite eye-opening and helped me figure out how to beat the Monday blues.
Mondays sucked for me, but not because of what you’d think…
Not because it’s the start of the work week.
Or because you have to deal with your boss or direct reports or Zoom.
Or even because of the 8AM Monday weekly kick-off call…
BUT because I didn’t keep ANY body and food promises on the weekend.
Promises?
What promises?
Exactly.
You know the drill – Monday through Friday I have every minute accounted for. 7am workout, 9-5 work, 7pm meal prepped meal with the family…
But as soon as Friday evening hit, and I left the (virtual) office…
My promises AND my schedule went on PTO.
In fact, I behaved as though Friday at 6pm until Sunday evening was my free time. Literally. And that meant being free from any of my promises. Free from my exercise promises. Free from my food promises. Free from my sleep promises.
Clearly, my board of advisors (my head!), with my inner-brat at its helm, thought “no promises = freedom,” but the truth is that those promises actually gave me the structure I needed to feel good in my body and about my body and health.
My promises didn’t leave me feeling trapped, they left me feeling happy, proud, and inspired in my life.
Oh, that.
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So, after seeing my mistake (with a little help from my coach) I decided to shut up my inner-brat and I put in some good weekend promises for myself.
Namely, I only allow one sugar treat, I exercise an hour a day on Saturday and Sunday, and I get seven hours of sleep a night, minimum. And I gave myself a consequence of one partner chore for each promise that I broke.
Side note – Mike’s chores involved the OUTDOORS, getting cold, or worse, DIRTY, i.e. raking the leaves or, oh gosh anything but this, mowing the lawn.
And that was the magic formula for figuring out how to beat the Monday blues. My secret sauce to overcoming a perpetual “case of the Mondays.”
Once I started to take care of myself and keep my promises on the weekends, everything shifted. Lo and behold, I stopped hating Mondays! And the Sunday Scaries went away, too. Instead, I felt good about and proud of what I was doing to take care of myself. I was building a better relationship with my body and, in turn, my health.
Such a better use of my time and energy than hating on Mondays! After all, they’re innocent. And so were my co-workers who got in the way of my “scaries”.
Turns out, there was no such thing as the Monday blues, it was the Saturday and Sunday blew(off)s all along.