Limitless Monday: Start Your Week Off With A Bang! Monday May Become Your Favorite Day

Limitless Monday – Don’t Like Mondays?

Inspiration to start your week with a bang!

Each Monday I am going to attempt to provide you, my reader, with a tidbit of inspiration with the purpose of starting your week with a bang.

Let me start by telling you where my inspiration came from to write this Monday morning inspirational prose. It’s a long story but I’ll keep it short; it’s supposed to be a tidbit after all.

Back in 2008, when the financial world was imploding, like many, my business at the time was barely surviving. Monday mornings were the worst.

After a weekend of living in denial, reality would hit me in the face like a big smelly fish as soon as I walked through the door of the office.

One cold, unusually depressing Monday morning, a business contact of mine called me out of the blue to inquire as to my well being.

I explained my predicament, and how it looked likely I would be unable to make payroll for much longer, and it was probable that I would have to close the doors imminently.

His response was, “You will find a way, you are a fighter. Stay positive, don’t give up.” We spent about thirty minutes talking about money-making opportunities and light hearted banter.

When the call ended I was inspired despite my seemingly dire circumstances. I was ready to take on the week. I realized he was right.

I would find a way. My friend Robert continued to call me every Monday morning for the same pep talk. When the world was going to shit, I was making money hand over fist.

Robert single-handedly got me through the financial crisis of 2008.

The launch of my life-coaching business was inspired by that weekly advice from Robert.

I wanted to provide a weekly dose of inspiration for people to start their week. To motivate, to mobilize, to encourage action.

But there are only a limited number of hours in each day. A weekly ‘newsletter’ has the potential of reaching a much larger audience and inspiring a lot more people than my one-on-one coaching business.

That is my aim for Limitless Monday. 

Why Limitless?

Well, firstly it’s the name of my life and business coaching business, secondly it’s my favorite movie and lastly, that single word encapsulates what I believe we all have, limitless potential.

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So that is some background…Now for the inspiration to start this Monday morning with a bang.

For most of us Monday is the least favorite day of the week. Don’t take my word for it, let’s look at a few statistics.

In a recent survey, 58% of Americans said Monday was their least favorite day, followed by Tuesday at 12% and Sunday at 9%. Monday has been my least favorite day for as long as I can remember until I had a revelation.

Under the covers on Monday. Image Credit – Matthew Henry

But before that revelation why did I believe Monday was a day worth fast forwarding?

Usually I was tired, groggy from the weekend because I had had an extra few hours in slumberland, and I had gone to bed a few hours later than my normal weekday routine.

No doubt the consumption of alcohol had a hand in this grogginess as well. That was reason number one. This deviation from my weekly routine probably also impacted Tuesday, my second least favorite day.

Now, when you are feeling tired, you are also probably feeling irritable. The negative thoughts start to flow:

“I have five more days of this crap before the weekend.”

“How am I going to get through this week?”

“Mondays are so freakin boring.”

“God I need a nap, I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“When is it 5pm?”

So what was my revelation?

Two revelations in fact.

Firstly, I had been doing some research into sleep. The bottom line is you shouldn’t deviate from your regular sleep pattern by more than an hour as this can disrupt your body’s internal clock which then impacts your sleep quality.

Whilst you can catch up on lost sleep, it’s a challenge for our body to fully catch up.  Also, oversleeping can have a similar effect.

So, next weekend by all means have a few drinks but try to stick as close to your weekly routine as possible plus or minus an hour. Of course if you get up at 5am Monday to Friday you can probably change that to 7am as long as you are getting at least 7-8 hours. Sleeping for 10 plus hours at the weekend has to stop.

The second revelation:

It’s all about framing. Framing being how I was framing Monday’s in my delicate little head.

Because I had conditioned myself to regard Mondays as a day I dreaded, by definition it had to be that way. So I attempted to re-frame that idea.

Here is my new thinking…Mondays are the most important day of the week. Mondays are for planning the week ahead.

If you get Monday right the rest of the week falls neatly into place.

Consider Monday as the building blocks of not only your week but also your future.

Firstly start your day by bounding out of bed enthused. Happy to be alive. Grateful to get another shot at improving on last week’s performance both at work and in your personal life.

Do something today that gets you excited, something you can look forward to. Meet a friend after work, go to a different place for lunch, attend a new fitness class, start a new hobby, sign up for an online course, basically something which makes you feel alive.

On a typical Monday many of us are thinking ‘same old, same old’. Make it not the ‘same old’. Do something that will make you grow in some shape or form. 

Make Monday the day when you undertake the most challenging endeavors.

Your hardest workout in the gym. A jujitsu class which pushes you to your limits. Undertake a project or task at work which you have been avoiding and requires above average brain power.

If you are a salesperson, make more than your average quota of calls. If you have a daily target of 200 calls, as soon as you open your eyes at 5am decide that today is the day you are going to smash that number, your goal, 300!

If you follow this thinking every Monday, you will want to grab your week violently by the neck and rule the day rather than having the day rule you.

Rule the day! Start today. Happy Monday!

Banner Image: Daily inspiration. Image Credit – Pablo de la Fuente