Monday Motivation: 2019 Top 10 Tips

By Loralyn Mears PhD Loralyn Mears PhD has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team
Published on December 30, 2019

Monday Motivation here we come! We see you – coffee cup in hand, trudging through the dark cursing your commute. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back! If you’re more of a podcast person versus someone who reads, listen at our Monday Matters content on Spotify. Check out our Grit Daily podcast channel.

If you lament this day of the week, you may need our Monday Motivation quick tips. Studies show that your morning mood affects your productivity all day. Grit Daily is here to get your work week off to a good start. Pump your fists – it’s time for Monday Motivation!

Thank you for an awesome year

We really appreciate that you’ve been taking the time to read our weekly column. Many of you have now discovered our weekly podcast and begun subscribing to it. Thank you! It’s been a great year and today’s column is #43. Wahoo! And cheers to 2020 and all the new learning and opportunities that it brings.

Fan favorites included: “Take your PTO,” “Tune in, not out,” and “The Unplugging Experiment.” Although I’m obviously biased and tend to like all the Monday motivation columns that I write or I wouldn’t publish them (duh!), I was particularly impacted by the “You Crack Me Up” column. As I did the research on the health benefits of laughter, I found numerous articles citing how we laugh less with every year that we age. I shuddered: this was terrible news! Right then and there, I vowed to laugh more. And yes, I have been laughing more but still not enough. Lookout 2020 …

Too busy to read full sentences

Somewhere along the way, we, as a society, became fascinated by obsessed with Top 10 lists. Simply Google “Top 10” and more than 34 million hits are returned microseconds later. Perhaps this is an outcome of being a “busy” population where most of us are lamenting that we have less time than we ever did before. I smell a future Monday motivation column …

Couple this with the volumes of data bombarding us day and night (every minute, over 300 hours of new videos, with topics now well beyond kitty cats, are uploaded to YouTube) and, it’s not surprising that we want info distilled into byte-size nuggets. Who has time to surf through all of that? Most people don’t even have time to read full sentences anymore!

This is Monday motivation and we get that you’re busy. So we’ll hop right to it. Here are the Top 10 tips for 2019.

Top 10 Tips of 2019

Monday motivation 2019 offered 132 coaching tips, but only 10 made the list. Which tip helped you most over the past year?

#1 – if you need help, get help

Whether the stress of the holidays, a break-up, tension at work, friction with your family, sharing news about your sexuality or whatever it is, the topic doesn’t matter. If you need help, GET help. Don’t wait. Call a professional who can guide you through your situation and manage your anxiety. The call is free, no questions asked, no judgment, 24/7/365 Help Line: 1-800-662-4357. More tips here.

#2 – eat that frog, don’t procrastinate any longer

We are a procrastination nation: 20% of us have a chronic condition while another 50% of us procrastinate regularly. EAT THAT FROG. It’s horrible, it will go down kicking and screaming, but, if you do the worst chore, task, or thing that you have to do as the first effort of the day, you’re productivity will boom and that sense of accomplishment will carry you through the day and maybe even the week. More tips here.

#3 – laughter is contagious, go get “infected”

Tickling rats and dogs make them more playful which slows down their pace of aging. Why nobody studied what happens to cats when you tickle them I don’t know, but, other research shows that people laugh 30x more often when they’re with their friends versus when they’re with non-friends. The moral of the story is to spend more time with friends and let those belly laughs rip! More tips here.

#4 – give the gift of light

A whopping 69% of Americans are stressed out about how they will be able to pay for gifts during the holidays. There’s no need to overspend and incur debt. Have an honest conversation and opt to give each other the one thing that nobody seems to have enough of these days – time. Share your time with each other, give someone the gift of your light. More tips here.

#5 – take your PTO

Being “busy” all the time isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. More than 700 million vacation days go up in flames every year in the USA. Half of the population loses PTO days owed to them. That’s not good for our mental health, productivity and quality of life. No excuses, get out there and take a day off once in a while! More tips here.

#6 – change one thing  

It’s too easy to look at all those “perfect lives” on social media and “perfect people” in magazines long enough to make ourselves miserable and leaving us convinced that we need to change everything. Not so. Trying to change too many things will become overwhelming and you won’t manage to change anything at all. Start with one thing. Work at it daily until it becomes a habit and you can consider the change successful, then move on to the next thing that you want to change. More tips here.

#7 – tune in, not out

Try it. I dare you. In fact, I double-dog-dare you. Go into a café and put your earbuds, Airpods, headphones or whatever noise-cancellation device you have into your bag. Hide them. Sit there, look around, try to make eye contact. Smile. Say hello. Practice this for a few days then a few weeks and you’ll notice how much more receptive people are you to. More tips here.

#8 – stay curious to stay young

Nearly all tips for staying young – not looking younger – are grounded in brain activity. From eating less and exercising, which both stimulate thinking, socializing to believing in yourself all have a positive effect on aging. Ask more questions, don’t be shy! As soon as you stop learning, your cognitive decline accelerates. More tips here.

#9 – change your perspective

If things aren’t going exactly to plan, maybe it’s time to look at things a little differently. Take a look as an outsider, paint the scenario and ask someone else for input or take a wishful approach and consider what would be different if you had a magic wand. And, if you start to cry in a conversation but don’t want to, look up – looking up with change your perspective and the shape of your eyes just long enough so that the tears won’t drip down your cheeks and you’ll get that moment you need to pull yourself together. More tips here.

#10 – dare to be different

Embrace yourself for all the bits that are good and even the ones that others think are not so good. Be who you are meant to be. Tune out all the noise and love all the ways that you are different. Comparing yourself to others is an exercise in futility. Besides, the “status quo” is so boring! More tips here.

Cheers to 2020!

Thank you for a terrific year! Cheers to 2020 and making Monday motivation the first – but not the only – day of the week where you strive to be more, do more and enjoy more!

2020 will be BETTER. Say it! Believe it. Now say it with feeling. Go, go, go!

Lead image by Schwoaze from Pixabay 

By Loralyn Mears PhD Loralyn Mears PhD has been verified by Muck Rack's editorial team

Journalist verified by Muck Rack verified

Dr. Loralyn Mears is a Columnist at Grit Daily and a podcast host (The Grit Files, which aims to shine the spotlight on female founders). She is a content marketer, founder of the WORKtech startup, STEERus, specializing in personal and professional development to address gaps in soft skills - communication in particular. In her consultancy practice, she helps clients with content and strategy. Loralyn spent over a decade playing with mosquito DNA, got her PhD, decided she would rather market science than be at the bench and has never looked back. Along the way, she’s wined and dined her way around the globe. She's authored two books, including the 2018 Gold Medal Indie Book award-winning, One Sip At a Time: a Memoir and the hard science thriller, "The Battle for Humanity: How Science Saved Us." 

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