Why I Don't Hate Mondays

Mondays used to be a source of unbearable anxiety. Another week filled with pointless meetings, incessant politics and managing unrealistic expectations with outrageously limited resources...

And then, burnout came thundering into my life. It was all at once destructive and creative, exhausting and liberating, a mystery and clarity-producing. Everything that had hitherto seemed important (at least to other people) became meaningless in the face of my extreme physical incapacity. The absence of energy simultaneously brought me face to face with my addiction to (over)work and my lack of connection with the true me that was dying to emerge fully into the world.

Hating Mondays (and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays!) was a symptom of a much bigger issue - the inability to be myself at work. Here’s what I now know. 

It’s exhausting to contort yourself into all kinds of behaviours that are not you. You’re not a pretzel. You’re a unique, glorious, human BEING who has much to offer the world. Every time you contort yourself for the satisfaction of your boss, your team, your organisation or your mortgage, you twist your sovereign self into a very limited, dumbed down version of who you are. 

This is what creates misery in the world. The essence of you detests being less, being controlled, being limited, being stuck in situations that suck the life out of you. Your true self knows there is much more available than this.

I’ve come to adore Mondays. I wake up, I listen to all the traffic from the people going off to work. I sense their stress and strain and I’m grateful that my body made one huge confronting choice so that I can have unlimited choice every day. 

Most of all, I get to show up at my greatest. Here’s ten things I don't miss about office life… (or why I live a creative life and created a business I could run from anywhere...)

1. You can't paint & sketch while you are on the phone in corporate, even if you have an office, people are going to look at you strangely.
2. You don't get to see the sunset over the water in winter because you're still at your desk. (Oh yeah and you don't get to live at the beach...)
3. Peak hour traffic... mine is more like a motley collection of dogs on my sunset walk.
4. Getting approval for my creative ideas took months of negotiating in most cases (immediate action is more my thing!)
5. Working with the same people day after day and wading through the sludge of office politics. (Diversity of connections creates inspiration and happiness.)
6. Having budget cuts and being expected to do more with less (and getting no thanks when you do) - instead I get to be grateful for me and my choices every single day.
7. Being constantly tired from all the competition and judgement I was aware of. (Now I just change the situation with a wave of my creative wand...)
8. Doing the same thing year after year because no-one had the courage to do something different or unproven (unless it involved a budget cut!)
9. Only having 4 weeks holiday a year. (Now I get to choose - every freaking day!)
10. Logic and linearity are the primary values. You can't be innovative if you have to prove everything in advance. Yep, some 'experts' are confused about how creativity actually works.

Some of you will wonder if I miss anything about corporate? It's been 9 years, so not really anymore. At the start I missed having an IT department, having a regular paycheck and... um... that's about it. And there were a few people who I really enjoyed - and I still enjoy them!

Building my business on a platform of creative play is pretty much the antithesis of what is recommended... and those experts are correct if you want to create a traditional business. 

That was never in my sights... been there, done that, got the t-shirt (which had a really ugly logo and was designed to look good on a man). See? You can’t say that in an office without the thought police pouncing on you 😉

So what does all this mean for you? Just one thing. Make the choices that make you happy. 

Your joy, your bliss, your love of living whole-heartedly is all that is valuable on this planet. The rest is just working hard and ‘trying' to live.  

Love your Mondays like it's the weekend every day!

xo

Lisa

P.S. You can also love Mondays by transforming your work into a creative adventure that inspires you and the people around you. You don't have to leave your job, you just have to do it differently to what people expect!

If you're wondering if you have burnout, take the Wellbeing Quiz here. You'll receive great tips for preventing and transforming burnout.