It’s Monday, so what now? What did you do over the weekend and was it enough of an escape to make you forget that today was the day you had to start it all over again?
Too many of us use the weekend as an escape from something we have to face the 5 other days of the week. Covid hasn’t helped things. Nonetheless, rather than looking for a weekend escape, we should be focusing on making our 5 day work week into something we don’t need an escape from. I don’t know what that means for you but, for me, it means keeping to a very specific routine that allows me to know I’m going to get in the things that I sometimes run out of time to do. These “things” are things that keep my mind in check during an otherwise chaotic week.
Having Bipolar makes this even more imperative. It’s easy to say that staying in bed an xtra hour will make me feel more rested – this is true. However, getting up one hour earlier and getting my training program in will make me feel better throughout the day. Not just because it’s something that’s already taken off my schedule but, even more importantly, it sets my day up on a great note because I know I started it by being active. It’s also motivation for me to get into bed an hour earlier. Even though the last thing I want to do is get up when that alarm goes off, especially knowing that I don’t have to, I try to tell myself “do what you think you’ll feel good about 2 hours from now”. I know that if I go back to bed, in 2 hours I’ll feel bad about it. This makes it a far easier for me to get my ass out of bed.
Find a way to get something into your schedule, every day no matter what, that sets your day up to be something positive. Good habits become good routines – those routines will make your week much more manageable mentally. Allow your weekends to become the reward for following through and not an escape from the things you didn’t do.
jeffwatters 