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Check your social media on any Sunday night or Monday morning. What do you see? It’s people dreading Monday and going back to work.
You can look at Friday’s too. As Friday approaches people start to get excited about being away from work – for two whole days.
Have you thought much about this? Why do so many people, maybe including yourself, look so much towards the weekend? Any why do they want to throw away the five days in the middle?
It seems like for the majority of people 71% of the week is wasted. From what I see on social media a lot of people would love to go to bed on Sunday night and wake up again the following Saturday.
Who wants to waste 71% of their life just trying to get through the motions to get to the fun part?
I surely don’t
In my work I help people build business plans and career plans. As such as I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work to help us get to where we want to go in life and in business.
I’m going to share with you how to build a life so you don’t dread Mondays. What I am telling you here is based on years of experience working with business owners, leaders and teams and helping them get two lives and careers they love.
It may seem impossible, but you can get to a life that you actually love. You can actually build a situation where you don’t dread Mondays.
I’ll break it down getting to this nirvana into simple chronological steps that you can start executing on right away. Sooner than you realize you’ll be enjoying a Sunday and not dreading Monday or you’ll be cruising through your week and not having the constantly countdown until Friday afternoon.
- There is More to Life
Start with the premise that there’s more to life than work. And you clearly know this is the case if you’re dreading Mondays or counting down until Fridays. Because you know you want to do the things outside of work.
The key is to integrate work and life. We need to blend the two together so that it doesn’t feel like work is taking away from life. Or make it to where work is adding to life. We simply need these two parts to play together so that they don’t feel like their in tension.
Start with the realization that there’s more to life than work. From there we need to look at the things that are important to us personally.
We need to examine why we’re loving our weekends and our free time but dreading our working hours. What is it that we’re doing at work that makes us have this dread? What are we doing on the weekends or free time that we enjoy so much?
We need to start finding those themes. The fact that we have interests outside of work and the fact that we dread working is indeed a good thing. This shows us that there is indeed more to life than going to work and dreading our time away from the life that we love.
- You Have Things You Love
So we know we have things we love. Now we want to start playing on those and figuring out what they are. We want to really stop and think about what we love.
What do you love doing when you’re away from work? What are you doing at work that you hate? It’s time for a little reflection.
It may seem silly, but sometimes thinking about what we enjoy and what we don’t enjoy will really make a difference in our perspective on life and in business.
So what do you love? Start making a list.
What do you hate about work? Start making a list.
It’s important that we focus on the things that we love if we’re going to make a plan to change our lives to be more enjoyable. What we want to do I’m still the world we can spend more time doing the things we love and less time doing nothing to regret.
We’re going to get to where we don’t hate Mondays we’ve got to have something that we love doing between Monday and Friday so that we can focus on that.
- You Need to Think Bigger
Part of this growth process is to start thinking bigger. In the last step I asked you to focus on the things you love. Now we really need to focus on this.
What can we do that combines the things we love with an income and cash flow that supports the life you want? And how can we earn that income and cash flow without doing the things we dread?
Truth is most of us are going to have to spend significant time working. Unless we come from a wealthy family, hit the lottery or somehow hit a homerun in business we’re going to have to work.
For myself and most of my clients work doesn’t mean doing things we hate. Work means doing things we love to help others and to advance our futures.
I want you to start thinking about how you can do more of the things you enjoy and less of the things you dread in your work day. What would a world look like where you were doing the things you enjoy?
Start thinking about what market demands exist now or in the future. We can focus on doing the things you enjoy and help others.
- Getting a Big Dream
Now that we’ve focused and what we dislike and what we love and how this plays together in the market we can start to dream.
I want you start spending time drawing mental pictures. writing stories and otherwise focusing on what your future could look like if you started to do the types of things that we discussed in step 3. What would life be like if you could do the things that you enjoy and earn a living?
Start dreaming on that. Start dreaming on how that business or career might look. If there’s one thing that’s for sure it is that people that are passionate about doing what they love have greater success. So not only will you be enjoying your days, not dreading Mondays and advancing yourself, you will actually be adding more value to the world.
It’s not uncommon for those to do the things they love to have amazing results. And their businesses to grow to earn more and more money.
Take the time to dream about where you are now and where that might lead you.
- Are You Ready for Some Sacrifice
Now the hard part. We wouldn’t get from where you are now, dreading Mondays and anticipating Fridays to having a life of your dreams, there’s probably going to be some sacrifice in the middle.
For some that sacrifice may be small. Maybe leaving a job and some co-workers behind — just a transition.
For others that sacrifice might be huge. For some people there will be a big gap between where we are now and where we want to be in the future. And jumping a gap will require significant work and sacrifice.
We’re talking about making a major change in the quality of your life. To get to where you don’t dread Mondays. To where you can enjoy an additional 71% of your time on Earth. Obviously something that valuable and that meaningful to achieve will require work.
So we got to get our eye on that prize and be willing to make some sacrifices along the way. What specific sacrifices you have to make is to be determined, but we know there will be sacrifices.
You need to show yourself it’ll be worth it.
- Making a Plan
The next step is to make a plan. I spent a lot of time in the world of time management. I’m co-author of a book called It’s About Time. Why am I mentioning this? Because we’re going to have to manage our time and focus.
And as I talked about in It’s About Time it’s critical that we set priorities. And that’s exactly what what I have to do to change our lives here. What I have to manage our time and set priorities.
The good news is if you followed the steps to get to this point in the article you’ve already done the hard work to make a plan to succeed. You already know who you are and where you want to be.
Now we just need to break things down – into steps.
We have a dream of where we want to be. We should know where we are now. With those two things in mind we can make a plan of what needs to change. Then knowing what needs to change we can start the steps to make a plan to get to that change.
Planning doesn’t need to be difficult. It’s just about knowing where we are now, where we want to be, and the steps to get there.
Check out some of my other works and articles for more details on how to make a plan and follow me as I’ll be talking on this subject frequently. You can find me at PlanningDoneRight.com and the Future Done Right(™) YouTube Channel.
- The Reality of Plan Execution
Now the reality is there will be hiccups along the way. We’re going to have to make some sacrifices – and the plan is not going to go exactly right. The truth is that not every step in that plan that we just wrote it’s going to happen in the order we thought it would.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make plans. But it does mean is we should be ready for some setbacks.
There’s going to be some disruption and getting from where we are now where we want to be. We need to hold on to that goal when I dream of what we want and know that we can power through set backs.
If you’ve had any life experience at all you had setbacks. Just know that this is like everything else. Things will happen that you don’t plan but you keep going.
Keep your eye on that dream and where you’re headed.
- Building the Strength to Get There
All of this is to say you need the strength to get there. And you may not have the strength to get there when you’re reading this article. That doesn’t mean you should give up on your dreams and that you should be destined to dread Mondays for the rest of your life.
No. What you should be doing is building that dream and starting to take the steps. What you will find is if you start taking steps toward your goal, towards that future where you don’t dread Mondays, you’ll start building the strength to get there.
Slowly but surely you’ll figure out ways to deal with setbacks, to overcome obstacles and to keep moving to your goal. The strength will come. I promise you.
If you focus on the dream and keep working on updating the plan on how to get there you will get stronger to get there. The key is take the first step.
- Getting Through the Scary Moments
Now depending on how your plan looks there will probably be some scary moments. For many people the scariest moment will be leaving a full-time paying job and jumping into a new business that they’ve built. This can be really scary.
Getting past the scary moments requires believing in yourself, watching your past successes and understanding the emotions at play. We’re all going to be scared at different times.
I wish you could get to a job in a world where you don’t dread Mondays without having some scary moments. But it’s going to be part of the process. And they’ll make you better when you do get get there.
Get a support team that loves you keep in touch with them. Start figuring out a plan to deal with those scary times. Lots of scary moments can be anticipated. Plan for them and know who you’re going to call and what you’re going to do to keep your plan happening.
Conclusion
You don’t have to dread Mondays. I know I don’t. And I know many of my friends don’t either. It’s a very doable. We just have to take the steps to get there.
I want you to get there. 71% of your life is a lot to waste.
Think about how good it’s going to feel – probably in the next few years – to not hate Monday mornings.
If getting over that sinking feeling every week doesn’t motivate you I don’t know what will.
Do you really want to make plans that work?
If you really want to get deep into making great business plans, make sure you get my FREE guide “Planning In Light of A Changing Future” by clicking here.
Resources:
Future Done Right™ YouTube Channel – Check out this YouTube Channel for interviews and discussions about the future of business.
FREE preview copy of Business Blunders! – This is my first book and it looks at common business mistakes that I’ve seen in my years of working with business owners. This will allow you to avoid those issues in your business!
And a little Thank You?
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