Easter weekend, or rather a weekend of indulgence led by the main rebel, chocolate. It got the best of me. For the first time in a long time I decided to take 2 days off work to completely switch of my mind and dive head first into good food and laziness.
Monday came around and I just couldn’t get into the swing. I’ve expressed before how much I love Mondays. It’s the start of a new week and I’m usually buzzing off the possibilities the week holds for me. Monday 2nd April. Nah. Negative. Didn’t happen.
image source unknown - sourced via Pintrest
So I had a slow day? So what? Well actually it bugged the hell out of me, so much so that I spent the whole day feeling bad about being slow and semi-trying to get my work done when I realised at 22.07 in the evening that I had not wasted the day because I was slow. I had wasted the day because I spent the entirety of it beating myself up for not being as on form as usual. It got in my head, ate away at my productivity, then ate away at my self-respect. Usually I would have let something like this take me over, without actually analysing why I was feeling a particular way. But Monday night I decided I didn’t want to go to bed feeling bad about myself and let it roll on to today.. and maybe Wednesday too.
It’s ok not to be the best version of yourself every single day. Really it is. Sometimes you just have to let these things be. Being hard on yourself could have even worse affects.
image source unknown - sourced via Pintrest
Theoretically, I know what I should have done instead of let the feeling of not being productive take me over. The solution would have been to chill out. Take a break. Go workout. Enjoy my day rather than forcing myself to work when I couldn't. It wasn't because I was lazy, it's because I was tired and my mind was preoccupied with other things. But I didn’t stop in time to listen to myself and appreciate my current state of mind.
Just because I have best practices, doesn’t mean I can always use them and get it right in the moment. This isn't just the case for working, but can be applied to many areas of life. It’s a constant journey of growing, improving, refocussing and above all..
Learning not to beat yourself up.
Yasmine
So bloody true. I know exactly what you mean and how you felt. Feeling bad about not doing something and then not doing it anyway, and not doing anything else either. Complete waste of time. Happens to me too sometimes.
Like you said, the best thing is to change the environment and try to switch your mind. It's fine to have days where you don't do anything at all. In fact, I started to save at least one day a month (usually a Sunday) where I just don't plan anything and see where the day takes me, and because I don't have any pressure - I actually still end up doing a few things I enjoy :-)
That's a great tip! I'm going to try that. One free day of no planning! Ok done!
Oh my God - do you have cameras? ARE YOU HERE IN MY APARTMENT RIGHT NOW ?????? Ahahahahaha !!!!
You cannot BEGIN to imagine how ME is this post of yours !!!!!!!!!!
About loving Mondays, about beating myself up when I'm not productive - I mean every single phrase of yours is like I wrote it....I would choose the exact same words, unbelievable !!! applause - and hugs ;)
Glad to hear it resonated with you @meanmommy33 seems like we have a lot in common! :-)
Breaks are part of productivity in my opinion, as long as they don't become procrastination. We all need breaks and you did a darn good thing to take one. You deserve it! Next time, don't beat yourself up and listen to yourself. Treat yourself to an activity that you enjoy and you will come back to the productive cycle with more energy than you had before!
You're so right @jessicapixie! Thanks for the words of encouragement! Truly appreciate it.
Well done "Yasmine"
Thank you! Hope you liked it.
Yes that should be the mantra to go by....Learning not to beat yourself up. It's ok to take a break once in a while.
Agreed @swati-s! :-)
Don't worry, you're not the only one. We just came back from Singapore late on Saturday and when it came to Monday, we weren't in the mood. Maybe we were in holiday mode still, maybe we just needed an extra day off. Still, Becca forced herself to work, but Sam took a day off Uni. He has to complete an assignment and presentation by Wednesday (tomorrow) and thought skipping Uni would help as he would get it done rather than being in a lecture for 3 hours (+ 1.5 hours each way to get to and from Uni). Nope, procrastinating took half the day, but yes he had to get some work done and did. However, he feels and knows this assignment won't get the best of grades. Not the best timing, but sometimes you just have those off days. Productivity comes best when you are motivated to do it. This is why we didn't do our Random Monday's post yesterday as we weren't motivated to write and better to not write then produce a half-ass post.
Hopefully, our energy is back to write a post tonight. :)
I can totally relate. I've been reading quite a lot about other people being affected by it too. Oh well, it's ok to miss one Random Monday. Maybe you could even do two next Monday instead? :-)
We're sure it happens to everyone and each and every one of us have different ways of managing it.
We'll see where we're at next Monday, but two Random Monday's post could be on the books. ;)
Thanks Yasmine for this post and well timed for us :)
You've been upvoted by TeamMalaysia Community :-
To support the growth of TeamMalaysia Follow our upvotes by using steemauto.com and follow trail of @myach
Vote TeamMalaysia witness bitrocker2020 using this link vote for witness
If you start to beat yourself up just take a coffee break :D