Monday Bloody Monday! The Monday morning blues are like a dose of crabs… either you have them or you don’t – and if you do, they were easily avoidable in the first place!On this particular day each week, you’ll either find yourself waking up on a Monday morning despising the ground you walk upon and feeling depressed about the world in general, or you’re jumping out of bed (with similarity to all other days of the week), ready to give the week your very best.Although what I’m about to say here may be contrary to popular belief, Mondays aren’t horrible or ‘bad’ days within themselves, it’s just that the greatest percentage of people hate what they fell they have to do on them (I.e. go to spend the next 8 hours fulfilling a job role that they don’t have one bit of interest in doing).You may or may not have heard it said that life is work and work is life. In reflection of this, work within itself isn’t a bad, has never been a bad thing or never will be a bad thing – however, if you have committed the best of your time to a company or organisation that you don’t believe in, this will explain why you might often find yourself living for not too much more that next weekend.If the words are work and life are mutually exclusive, imaging what it would feel like if your life were consumed by doing a works that you loved and were passionate about?If this were the case, wouldn’t Monday morning just be the start of another great day and another exciting week?Imagine if you were to wake up on Monday morning excited about getting stuck into your work to discover what difference you could make in the world this week. Imagine how life would be if you no longer cared that the fun of the weekend was over because you had another type of excitement to look forward to during the week – work that fulfilled you, work that satisfied you, work that other people truly appreciate and as a result valued you for it!
Imagine if you were to develop a deeper level of friendship with those that you work with over the acquaintances you spend you time with on the weekends. If this were the case, perhaps Mondays would no longer seem so bad?Imagine if when each Sunday evening comes around, you were to no longer dread the beginning of your next horrible week. Monday! It’s never been this six-letter word that’s caused you the angst and the fear; it’s what this word ‘Monday’ represents to you that you despise.If you find that Monday threatens you in exactly the same way that a sentencing date would threaten a prisoner, it might be a good time to evaluate your life and examine why YOU ARE CHOOSING to do what you do for work in the first place!There isn’t one person in the world that can make you do anything, say anything, feel anything or be anyone against your own will. If you are stuck in a role that you hate, unfortunately it was YOU that signed up for this, and it was YOU that enlisted in the first place.You chose your job, you chose your career, you have chosen the path you are currently going down and the only person in the world who is responsible for the choices you make is yourself. If you’ve allowed yourself to be chained to a five-day work week that’s more a prison sentence than a safe haven, have you ever considered the real reasons why you chose this for yourself in the first place? Mondays have never come attached to the dread and pain you experience throughout your working week: You have determined the degree of this, which you experience since you initially signed up.Mondays were never created to be endured, and while there may not be a cure for many forms of cancer, there is a cure for the despisement of ‘Mondays’ for which there will never be enough coffee and cream cakes to appease.The morning commute will also feel like drudgery, as the journey is more about dreading the final destination than the travel required to get there!If you’re enjoying the time in your car more than the idea of getting out of it, something is wrong. If you’re basking (or even trying to sleep your way through) your 25 minute train ride and huffing and puffing your way off it, you’re setting yourself up for an absolute ‘stinker’ of a Monday.If you bask in your commute, hoping to drag it out for as long as possible, that means you’re dreading your job more than the average man (or woman). Because nothing can be worse than 7 – 9am Monday morning traffic, crowded roads, busy trains and cranky strangers without a smile in sight.At the end of each Monday, Going home to the bottle or to the local bar for a drink because you need to erase the awful taste that Monday’s left in your mouth isn’t the fault of the calendar day.It’s the direct result fault of the life choices you have already made and continue to make.Are you living to work, or are you working to live?If you are working for the sole purpose of maintaining a standard of living that you have managed to create for yourself, you may in turn be able to easily justify why it is that you are doing what you do.It doesn’t actually matter what you do or what you get in life – maybe opportunity, money, drink, drugs, a better paid job, Sex, DRUNK SEX, promotion, a pay rise, a new friend or a life partner – none of it matters in regards to the degree of contentment you will experience each Monday morning.
Recently, I went to visit and coach a guy in prison. He told me a story about another inmate who had millions of pounds stashed away somewhere – waiting for him once his 20 year sentence is over. His family lives in financial abundance, in a mansion somewhere, with their kids at the best schools – but without a husband or father.I know another guy who works in a top Edinburgh Law Practice where the new guys earn at least £50K per year, and where up in the board of director’s office, the partners stopped counting in thousands years ago. These lawyers work very long days, weekends, and evenings with rooms where they can sleep in like a home from home.Of course there are a number of differences in these men’s lives, as one lives in prison and the other in a Law Practice – however the main difference is that although the lawyer gets out into the exercise yard a little more often, he’s in it for 40 years, not just 20 years like the inmate – with the chance of getting out earlier if he behaves himself!So does work seem like a prison to you?Many people believe that the greatest prisons are those built of cast Iron, reinforcement and concrete, however, I’m going to suggest that the greatest prison that human beings can be kept in are the prisons of their own minds!The human mind is the most effective prison that keeps man enslaved – the prison of the mind and limited understanding of how we can effectively pursue happiness.So, the secret – THE TRUE SECRET to real lasting Monday morning happiness, contentment, and fulfillment… is life PROGRESS.What changes do you need to make today in order to move forward with your life?