Manic Mondays: How to Turn Monday Into Your Favorite Day

Thought for the Day: The Bangles captured how hard it is for most people to start their work week in their 1986 hit song Manic Monday (see video below). Since Mondays come after Sundays which are for many people their "fun day," it's hard to be back on the clock & rushing to work. I'd like to dedicate my new Monday blog series to tips to help you change Mondays into a more positive way to start your week. They will be looking at improving the start of your week from a psychological perspective. I hope you like it & that you will share this post with friends & post your comments, questions & tips on how you feel about Mondays & how these suggestions work for you.

Since I am a psychologist who also writes songs, I pay attention to lyrics. Many people only hear a chorus or ignore the words to songs. They still get the gist of a song like Manic Monday, since the chorus does a great job of illustrating how most people feel about Mondays. However, if you listen to the lyrics, it may help you find the clue to turning Mondays into your favorite day of the week. The song written by Prince for The Bangles, opens with the words, "Six o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream. I was kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream. But I can't be late cause then I guess I just won't get paid."

Those of you who have been reading my blog over the last year know that I believe that dreams should not be reserved for sleep & that money is not the only thing that motivates us to work. Ironically, The Bangles & Prince turned the universal fear of not "getting paid" if we let our dreams run our lives into their ticket to their dreams of successful careers in music with the financial freedom to travel & have control of their schedule.

I'm not suggesting that you should quit your day job; however, I do believe that you can start building your dreams into your life. The Bangles, like most artists, were not an overnight success. They started singing together (with some different members & names) in 1980. It took hard work before they reached their audience & the pop singer Prince's attention. However, without their dreams, practice & persistence they may not have achieved their hit songs & success. 

For you to begin to look forward to Mondays, you need to first discover what your dreams are. What would you like to be doing. If you did not have to worry about paying your bills what would you do? Let's pretend that your dream would be like that of the singer in the song to spend time with Valentino in Italy. Do you want to go to Italy for a vacation, to study or to retire? What would you need to make your dream happen? Time, airfare, room & board are a few of the things you would require. Would you need to learn Italian? How long do you think it would take you to acquire all these things? What if you spent some time researching all you would need to accomplish this dream in your spare time on weekends or after work? Perhaps Mondays could be your day to make sure you were staying on track of your "dream" project. Your current job could be helping to make sure you saved enough every week to pay for the trip. Your employer might provide assistance in your learning a new language. You could investigate whether your company had any projects in Europe that you could apply to do. Or you might start looking into other jobs that had travel opportunities. The options are endless. To make anything happen, you do, however, have to give yourself permission to weave your dreams into your life plans and start working to implement them.

The singer in the song Manic Monday had to wake up & abandon her dream. You don't have to abandon your dreams when you wake up. Take some time every Monday to dream & start looking forward to a life that includes your dreams. If you don't like what you are doing, find a way to change it or add things you love into your week. Why not start today? How about spending you 1st coffee break today to start exploring your dreams & finding out what you will need to make them happen? Hope this helps you have a great Monday and a wonderful week!