I fully champion a certain song by the Boomtown Rats.  I love my job, I have a great life, and I’m lucky to enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle.  But I don’t like Mondays.  I guess there’s always going to be one day that you like less than others, but Mondays just don’t cut it for me. 

So here are a few tips for getting yourself motivated on a Monday – and I’m not referring to the tip I’m giving myself this morning: when carrying the swing sign for the clinic out to its business-hours location out front, don’t crack your shin on the extremely heavy base.  It will hurt.

1. A great start to the day can really help us be effective and positive as we move through the day.  Work out a few things that help you feel good in the morning, and build those into your early morning ritual.  By having a routine that you follow every morning, you can pre-plan and take the stress out of the day’s start, and by making some of the items enjoyable as opposed to merely necessary it can be a positive experience.
2. Yoga is something that has so many benefits on so many levels.  Even if you don’t have time for this every morning, perhaps getting up 10 minutes earlier on a Monday would be bearable and allow you to get in a few stretches and meditative breathing exercises, setting you up for a really feel-good week
3. Find an inspirational quote.  Not necessarily from the same site or app every time, but just something that makes you smile, feel connected or think about it.  Sometimes the search can be as fun as actually connecting with the words themselves.
4. Set yourself one task for the week to improve your health, your life or your home.  By keeping it to just one, you are almost certainly going to be able to achieve it and it will still get 52 tasks done each year.  It can be something as simple as walking the dog for 20 minutes, or as complex as starting a new building project – whatever you want to be able to look back on at the end of the week and say “I did that!”
5. Read a book.  I’m a total bookworm, so perhaps I’m biased, but chatting with some of my patients I’ve found that even people who wouldn’t consider themselves “book-y” derive a great deal of pleasure from reading, often surprising themselves with how enjoyable they found it.  Doesn’t have to be long, or complex, or even a “grown-up” book – I keep some of my books from when I was 8 or 9 and if I’ve had a long or difficult week I will pick up one of those.  It may only take me an hour to read, start to finish, but for that hour I am somewhere else, with someone else’s life. Added to which, evidence is increasingly showing that the light emitted by screens (whether from mobile, tablet, PC or TV) negatively affects your sleep patterns, so a book can be the perfect way to wind down at the end of the day.

Hope this helps everyone have a happy, healthy and energised week!