30th August 2016

In Defense of Mondays

Here’s a shocking idea: what if we all stopped hating Monday so much? What if we no longer stood in line at Starbucks on Monday mornings with a pit of dread in our stomach? Instead, what if we embraced Mondays the way small children grab Mickey Mouse’s leg for the first time at Disney World?

I don’t hate Mondays. In fact, I kind of like Mondays. I find calm in starting my weekly routine, making my to do list and looking ahead at all the interesting projects we’re tackling at Mighteor. And on Monday nights, I find it strangely easier to leave the office, go home and settle into my evening. Of all the days of the week, I often find Monday the least stressful, because the pressures of getting things done or meeting deadlines rarely falls on a Monday.

Maybe this is the life of an entrepreneur. We are forced to make our own weeks happen and the feeling of a fresh start on Monday morning is distinctly part of the spirit and culture of working at a small company. In fact, when I find myself thinking late at night about my company and the kind of culture I’d like us to try and build and retain, I often come back to the same thought: I don’t want my employees to dread Mondays.

Now, this may seem like an insignificant thing to consider. Our policies on healthy balance, open communication and work product may seem like the first things that should come to my mind. However, when you dive a little further into the emotional equation for why we love some jobs and loathe others, it’s often because of the people around us and how their thoughts and feelings impact our thoughts and feelings.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who works in sales and he was telling me that he stays off social media on Mondays. When I asked him why, his answer was so simple:

“Everyone I know is so full of complaints on Monday mornings. It’s just not a good vibe to start my week with.”

Groupthink is a real thing. There is no doubt in my mind that our cultural obsession with worshipping Friday has a lot to do with one guy, somewhere, standing around a water cooler and turning to the guy next to him and saying: “Mondays, amiright?” And before you know it, our cultural disdain for Mondays is born. We hate it, because we hate it together.

Reframing Monday can do wonders for your outlook on life. In so many of my jobs, I remember talking with colleagues about their weekend plans, but rarely, did we commiserate about our mutual passion to kill it on Monday. That should bother us as people who spend the vast majority of our week at work. And while I can completely understand that my deep passion for tackling a new week with verve can’t be shared by everyone, it is worth considering the impact it would have on our work place culture and ultimately, the bottom line, if we tried to at least not make it the worst super villain day of the damn week.

Going to a job that you hate or that you even just dislike, has real negative impacts on your health. Don’t believe me? Just ask someone who retired after doing a job they hated for 30 years. People have honestly told me that they feel like a different person. That, in retiring from a job they hated, they were freed to become who they always felt they were. I don’t even know how to make sense of that kind of thinking. But I think it starts with everyone buying into the idea that Mondays suck.

Mondays only suck if you hate your job.

Mondays only suck if you hate your colleagues.

Mondays only suck if you had such an epic weekend that work seems boring*

Mondays only suck if you live for the weekend.

Mondays only suck if you let them.

We have the ability to realign our expectations and our experience of Mondays. And it starts by no longer turning to each other and saying: “Mondays, amiright?” And instead, asking: “How are you going to be awesome this week?”

*In fairness, this seems like a worthwhile excuse.

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30th August 2016

In Defense of Mondays

The End