Why Your Mondays Suck
200: Master Mondays: Remove Dread and Anxiety
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about side hustles and new corporate measures to control and monitor employees. People are complaining quite a bit about their roles, the back to office pushes, and growing employee surveillance and monitoring systems.
It’s no surprise that after an era of Covid WFH and a taste of freedom, people are now resistant to getting back into the 9-5 corporate schedule.
Weekends are some people’s only salvation. That’s some dark stuff — working all week doing the same shit, then you get to the weekend, get wasted, blow money, do some things, and pass out at your apartment at 9pm with some chinese food from seamless while American Idol drums on in the background.
Sure we’d all like to nab that PGA Championship payout or print $5M on Nvidia call options and then call it quits — but for many of us it won’t be that easy.
For a lot of people across America and the world 4:00pm hits on Sunday and all of the sudden a massive sense of dread and anxiety overtakes them. They splurge on seamless, get bombed on Sundays, or waste their time and only think about the upcoming week at the very last second.
A recent study by Zety showed that for 81% of employees, Mondays are the most stressful day of the week – with 70% of employees admitting they suffer with the Sunday scaries.
Even if you didn’t go on a wild bender to the Hamptons or a bachelor party in Vegas, Mondays tend to get the best of most people.
Sunday “scaries”, anxiety, dread, nerves, etc. we’ve all heard and experienced the gloom of towards the end of the weekend in anticipation of a new week.
A large part of the anxiety and restlessness that people get in anticipation of a new week is derived from the fact that:
A.) they haven’t prepared properly for a new week
And/or
B.) they’ve feature dumped their weekend too hard with all of the enjoyable activities and “fun” that they usually enjoy on a weekly basis
Point A is completely avoidable, as is point B. We’ll walk through some ideas and concepts that have helped me to alleviate that sense of dread and anxiety when the new week approaches so that you can be:
A.) more productive
B.) happier when the week starts
C.) enjoy your weekends to the fullest
D.) change your attitude about Monday
A big piece of mastering Mondays and looking forward to new weeks is changing the way you view time and weekdays/weekends.
For those of us who haven’t yet won our financial freedom and full time back, Mondays are generally a reminder of just that: that you still need a day job, that you still have somewhere you must show up, and that the weekend, when your professional obligations usually cease for 50+ hours, is now over.
We see so many DMs of people who complain about their jobs and the new measures by companies to maintain lean teams and implement employee monitoring metrics, software, and structures.
This is clearly a strong move by corporations to leverage AI, automation, and new tech to ensure employees are producing in a hybrid work model environment coupled with a substantial back to office push by big companies.
Point being — the consensus is that people are coming to us complaining about the current work climate, asking about career moves, and painting a bleak picture. Lifes goes fast, so you really shouldn’t hesitate to make changes NOW. Take it from someone who lived the bachelor life in New York City for 7 years and who now has a family. It all moves very fast.
This post is aimed at anyone who wants to work through the anxiety and mental burden of Monday arriving so that you can get closer to your ultimate end goals and weaponize Mondays to your benefit. If you hate Mondays I strongly suggest looking at your role/job/life path and doing some strong reflection.
If you woke up today dreading your life or job or responsibilities or even you find yourself just hyper anxious of Mondays this post will walk through some ways to combat this directly. If you follow some of these rules, structures, and tips I can guarantee you have a better start to the week next Monday. This approach will bleed into your broader life and make you happier overall.
Changing your attitude towards Mondays and the start of the week is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, mindset, and future self. It was a game changer for me.
I used to dread Monday’s immediately after throwing back 27 lagunitas in West Village, being a menace on bumble,and sending it all day in my mid 20’s — stretching my Sundays in NYC as far as they would possibly go, until you get home at 8pm blitzed like Lahey from Trailer Park Boys, order seamless, watch a show, and wake up at 6:30am the next day in a total grog state.
As I’ve gotten older I gladly use parts of my weekend to prepare for what’s to come and do this a couple different ways that I’ll work through today — with any luck some of them will help some folks become even bigger size lords.
Anybody can apply these changes to feel significantly better off about Mondays or the start of a new week, or any day for that matter. If you’re happy in your job but don’t like Mondays this applies to you, if you’re unhappy, unemployed, or in working a tolerable job so you despise Monday’s, this is for you.
In order to be prepared and motivated for the week in my opinion you have to be on the attack — those with busier schedules who succeed in business and other realms of life know this.
By the end of today’s post you’re going to learn to love Mondays. This is all stuff I wish I knew earlier in my career and business endeavors as it would’ve sped everything up, made me more money, and removed any negative association with the final hours of Sunday evening looking towards the week ahead.
We’ll walk through:
Why People Hate Mondays
Why a lack of preparation is amplifying your issues
Why not honing in on your long term goals creates turbo anxiety
How to address these issues quickly and efficiently
Let’s get it.
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
“Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it … Start doing it.”
—Jocko Wilink