NOT Dave’s Top 5 List: Top 5 Reasons Why NOT Everyone Hates Mondays
It is only fitting that I have started working on this, my fourth blog, on a Monday.
I used to hate Mondays. Big time!
At my lowest point, I am not sure how my dread of the seemingly always encroaching Monday could have gotten any nastier, or unhealthier L
As long as I can remember, I have looked forward to the weekend as an opportunity to escape.
To escape school when I was younger and to escape work when I was older.
And up until a few years ago, to escape life.
My dread of Mondays started off harmlessly enough.
I would wake up Sunday morning with the realization that today was the last day off before heading back to work.
No worries at the beginning of the day, I had plenty of activities to keep my mind off the encroaching Monday morning wake up call.
It really would hit me before dinner time, the realization that the weekend was finishing.
That is when I would start feeling all of my positive energy start to drain and change to dread.
I then spent most of Monday trying to reenergize myself, a slow and painful process that led not only to a lack of productivity but it also led me to disengage with the people around me.
I would actually try and arrange my schedule so as not to have to be with people on Mondays.
No meetings. No calls. Eating lunch by myself. No activities after work.
I guess I thought that isolating myself and wallowing in self-pity was a good way to energize myself.
A little over 7 years ago things started to go from bad to worse.
I had outgrown the fit in my role at work.
I had, as they put it, risen to my level of incompetence.
Or maybe more appropriately to the edge of my comfort zone.
I could sense something was wrong.
It was like I was wearing shoes that were 3 sizes too small.
Funny, they seemed to fit just a while ago?
I was encouraged to step out of my comfort zone and do something about it.
Easier said than done, especially on Mondays which were becoming ever more unbearable.
I was not able to.
Slowly but surely my dread of Mondays started to take on a life of it’s own.
I would now wake up on Saturday morning with the realization that Monday was only 2 days off.
Activities were no longer sufficient to keep my mind off of my Monday morning dread so I started doing fewer of them as if that might help.
I am not sure what the logic was behind this new behaviour but that is what I started to do.
Sundays were ideal for doing fewer activities since I liked NFL football and there were games on pretty much all day long, and well into the night.
Imbibing in a half dozen beers while watching my favourite teams did not hurt either.
A nice little buzz was just what the doctor ordered. NOT L
In my previous blog on “how I lost 100 pounds of fat (and kept it off 🙂 )”, I mentioned that period of my life when I had developed quite the fondness for “spirits” and the impact it had on my health.
I also mentioned how comfort food was another way that I could raise my spirits, raise them in a way that complemented drinking a lot of spirits (pardon the pun 🙂 ). Can anyone say sugar rush?
The larger and unhealthier the portions of junk food the better.
Before I knew it, my dreading Mondays was now beginning to occur on Wednesdays.
It actually started before Wednesday, but unfortunately for me, turning to liquid courage for help was not an option for the first couple of days of the week since my body physically would not let me take in any more booze.
It needed a couple of days off.
I would have to wait until Wednesday night to resume my newfound approach to getting through the week and weekend.
Cool! Wednesday already. Yay! Can someone pass me the wine opener please? Bottoms up!
Those days are now behind me. I am so grateful for that 🙂
As it turns out, I was clinically depressed during part if not all of that period.
I was, what psychologists refer to as, a clinically depressed, functioning alcoholic.
At 264 pounds, I was also obese.
So I was an obese, clinically depressed, functioning alcoholic. Quite the mouthful.
As previously mentioned, I addressed how I overcame the obese part of ME in my blog on losing the weight (a.k.a. adopting a healthy lifestyle)
I plan on tackling how I overcame my clinical depression in a future blog (I need to spend some more time figuring it out myself)
I will also share some more of my newfound wisdom when I write my blog on how I was able to reduce my alcohol consumption. And by reduce it, I mean big time.
It has been a year now. I have gone from an average of 6-7 bottles of wine per week and a dozen beer to 2-4 glasses max per week, never more that 2 per occasion.
I am sharing all of this “wisdom” with you, baring my soul as it were, in case it can help others learn from my trials and tribulations.
I am now happier and more energized than I have ever been in my life and I have been around for a while now 🙂
Although I feel younger than I have in years, even decades, I am also a lot wiser.
I have accomplished this change as part of a personal transformation that I have undergone over the past few years.
I will further outline this journey in the book that I am writing about my personal transformation.
People no longer recognize me, both the outer ME (physical) and the inner ME (mental, emotional, and spiritual)
What did I learn about myself during this journey?
How did I pull it off?
How have I continued to maintain the change and build upon it? (i.e. how do I avoid what I term a “RIB”, a Regression in Behaviour? and how do I recover when I do?)
Once again, I am hoping that by sharing my story, this time in book format, that others can benefit.
Everyone is unique and are in their own unique situation, but hopefully they can draw upon some of my experiences to help them on their journeys.
For those of you who are interested, I will share the name of the book at the end of this blog.
But for now, back to Mondays, and more specifically, why I am apparently not the only one who has a problem with Mondays.
Have you ever heard of the song by The Boomtown Rats called, “I Don’t Like Monday’s”?
I can hear the tune in my head right now. Some of the lyrics are as follows
Tell me why?
I don’t like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down
Not sure they much cared for Monday’s either.
I came across a few interesting articles and studies while researching for this blog (a.k.a. first page of results from a google search on “why do I hate Monday’s so much”)
In one article, titled, “Mondays Are More Depressing Than We Thought”, the author refers to what I found to be a fascinating statistic. It is as follows;
“According to researchers, Monday mornings are so depressing that, on average, we don’t crack our first smile until 11:16 a.m.”
The study also found that “half of employees will be late to work, and will only log about three-and-a-half hours of productive work time.”
Wow. I guess I was not alone at not looking forward to my alarm going off on Monday morning.
Talk about a lot of misery. Talk about a lot of lost productivity and lost opportunities, whether they be at work, rest or play.
I don’t want to depress you too much but another study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that “people not only hate Mondays, but also Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays – making Friday the “happiest day of the week.””
It provided some interesting explanations as to why they thought that was occurring and what you could do about it.
So you might want to check it out.
(Note: the links to all of the articles that I allude to in this blog are located below)
There was also an interesting article entitled “6 Scientific Reasons Mondays Are the Worst”.
The author alludes to “a massive Gallup poll”, the results of which indicated, that “70 percent of people hate or, at best, are completely disengaged from their job.”
“This contributed to what psychiatrists and career coaches call the Monday Blues.”
“The feelings of depression and anxiety can start on Sunday night, leading to an unproductive Monday.”
Yoinks! 70% of people. That is a lot of people!
In another article, on a more positive note, the author has offered us up “12 ways to hate Mondays less: Simple tricks to start your workweek with a smile—or at least less of a scowl”
The new heathy me did not quite bite (pardon the pun) on the idea of eating chocolate cake for breakfast but some of the other tips were pretty cool.
My favourite, coincidentally, was tip #1, “Start your day by paying it forward”. What a cool way to start the day.
Imagine that as a way, to start my day, on a Monday (even rhymes 🙂 ).
By attempting to put a smile on someone’s face before 11:16 am 🙂
That might even end up putting one on mine.
I am so excited by this idea that I am going to add this activity to my calendar as a recurring to-do task.
By the way. A few of the tips in the article were a bit unconventional. Parental guidance suggested 🙂
Also, during my travels, I came across a book several months ago called “Penguins can’t fly + 39 other rules that don’t exist”
These rules had somehow evolved over the eons and become part of our collective psyche.
As an example, rule #6 is “thou shalt not have too much fun at work”.
Well, guess what rule # 9 is?
You guessed it, “though shalt hate Monday”
The author mentions that he also suffered from the condition that he terms, “Sunday Night Dread”.
He shares a few ideas on how to get out of this funk
No. 1 is to change your attitude
No. 2 is to change your job
(Note: approach No. 2 is what I ended up embarking on to get out of my funk. It took me 2 “job” changes and close to 6 years to get to where I am now, which is like night and day versus where I was)
Ironically, as I was sharing my story of dreading Mondays and my newfound quest to turn that dread of Monday to a Love for Mondays with two very inspiring women at the store where I bought the book on the 39+ rules they mentioned to me that they both like Mondays.
Wow. I was shocked. And a big skeptical at first.
They had both stated very quickly and with great conviction, that contrary to many others, they really did like Mondays.
Were they pulling my leg?
Had they misunderstood what I had said?
Maybe their boss was in the backroom and might take affront to any negative chit chat while on duty?
Well, it turns out, they insisted, none of the above applied.
I believed them.
They really sounded sincere in their positive feelings for this often hated day of the week.
So I decided then and there to part with tradition.
Although I had only written 2 blogs until then, I had well over a dozen topics teed up for future blogs.
All of them were based on MY observations, MY top 5 lists, as seen through MY lens.
So I decided that I would write this blog and share not MY top 5 list, but THEIRS.
So I asked them for their top 5 list of reasons that they like Mondays?
No sooner had I asked the question than I had received my list.
Took less than a few minutes for me to capture them.
What was really cool is the way they came up with them.
It was as if they were coming up with them at the same time. They were that connected.
Wow. Was I ever glad that I stopped by that day.
So without further ado, and thanks so much to Erin and Stephanie for being such sports and so kind in sharing their thoughts with ME, and now YOU, here they are:
Erin and Stephanie’s top 5 reasons that they like Mondays
- We like the people we work with (as they looked each other in the eyes). 🙂 Working with people that you are connected with and enjoy being with creates positive energy.
- We like our clients. Well most of them anyways. We get a few who have had a bad day but for the most part, the people are really friendly and kind.
- We have autonomy at our place of work.
- We get cool stuff on Mondays. That is when all our new stock comes in 🙂
- And last but certainly not least, “we don’t work in cubicles”.
My take away from the above list is the prominence of how people factor into the picture.
People and positive energy.
In hindsight, my trying to avoid others might not have been such a great strategy after all.
Last Monday night I went out with a friend for a fun activity and dinner and I really enjoyed myself.
Imagine that, I was out on a school night. A Monday night at that 🙂
As I was driving home it felt strange. It no longer felt like a Monday.
I was a bit confused as to what day it was.
Prior to my night out, I had a couple of really energizing calls during the day.
Go figure. Connecting with people, feeling energized, and now, here I was out on the town.
How cool is that 🙂
Why can’t everyday be like that?
You know what, maybe they can.
It is up to me to make it happen.
Time for an attitude change.
Maybe time that I write my own version of the Boomtown Rats song;
Tell me why
I now love Mondays 🙂
So I put the question out to all of you
Do you love Mondays?
If yes, do you have a top 5 list of things that have allowed you to achieve something that many others only dream of?
If not, maybe it is time to consider starting your own top 5 list on how to start loving Mondays.
You don’t have to wait 50 years like I did 🙂
And of course, as always, in the spirit of sharing, feel free to do so.
The more tips, tricks and ideas that people can leverage, the better.
Oh. And the name of the book that I am writing. It is aptly named; “Tell me why I now love Mondays (and every other day of the week)” 🙂 .
Well. That’s all folks
Cheers
Dave
Looking at making a positive CHANGE in YOUR Life?
What would that change be?
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