I know what you are feeling. I’ve been stuck in a crappy job. Monday morning is scarier than the beast who lived under your bed or in your closet as a kid. You roll over, hit the snooze although you’re wide awake, you sit there in dreed rolling over in your mind what the day most likely holds.
Most Mondays are the same. The events may change a little, but they all look and feel quite similar. I used to set the alarm a half hour early because I knew the amount of time it took to pull myself out of bed every morning. I’d lay there awake and try to lay out my strategic plan for the day, the program that would get me through the first day of the week with just a little sanity still intact for my drive home.
I’d pull up scenarios of problems that might arise and figure the solutions from under my warm comfy quilts, my haven for; oh; about twenty more minutes. The snooze would buzz about three times before I hit my deadline. I even had my path to the shower perfectly mapped so that I could do it with my eyes closed. The first shot of the shower became like my Monday morning ‘defib,’ a shock to get my heart moving again and send me into the day.
If your morning routine is something similar, I have good news. I have assembled a little bit of a plan to put a spring in your step on the way to the shower, or at least help you do it with your eyes open.
You need to figure out if it’s the job or the career which is depressing.
The main thing you need to figure out first is if it’s the job or the whole career which sucks. If it’s the job, you can always find a different one. If it’s a career, then I would start the search for something you enjoy doing. Here is my test.
If I’m lying in bed and an idea comes to mind enough to get me out of bed and scribble it down, that’s the direction I want to go. I used to do that with my previous job and career. I’d spend hours of my own time figuring out how to do my job better and how to make our cars faster. (I built race cars four sixteen years before I got to the point of burnout) I’d get up in the middle of the night to research ideas or scribble things down that came to me in a dream. I know it sounds hokey, but there were times when I’d concentrate on a problem so hard the solution did come to me in a dream and woke me out of a dead sleep.
This is what you need to explore. You may need to explore several until you stumble on something that fits your groove.
I like writing. If you’d asked me pre-2000 what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, a writer was the furthest thing from my mind. I took a couple of good English courses in college which got me hooked on reading TC Boyle, my gateway drug. Post-2000 it was my dessert. I loved it. But my main focus was still race cars, throttle down, high gear, nothing but race cars. Then I got a job building them. It was good for a while, but every job takes its toll. Everything we do for money probably ends up feeling like a ‘job’ after a while. Now, the throttle got pulled back to a dead stop, and I picked up the keyboard. With the same drive I used to have with cars, I now plunge methodically at those beautiful keys. You need to find your full speed ahead. You need to look for ways to make it pay the bills.
Ask yourself if other people are doing it and making a living. Is it something you can do and develop slowly on the side or will it involve training? Are there ways you can dip your feet in and see what it’s like as a test before committing yourself? It’s no fun to spend a ton of time or money on something, and life doesn’t get any better than it is now.
You’ll need to set some goals or at least be clear about where you want life to go.
Your goals are where you will start getting serious about your new life and where you will feel less trapped. I’m not a big goal person. What I say is to have an idea where you want to go long term. Is there someone in the spotlight doing what you want to do?
Model your life after theirs. Modeling might help you set some vision of life in the future without actually making goals. I want to write. So I looked around and set some expectations for myself when I started writing. I don’t like using the actual term ‘goals.’ It always seems too rigid for me. I’m continually changing course as I move further down the path. If I see something different I want to accomplish; I do some exploration. I don’t change directions completely, but as I experience or learn something different, I’ll veer a little more in that direction.
I still want to be a writer, but the type of writing changed from where I first started going after it several years ago. If the idea of setting rigid goals appeals to you and it’s the motivation to keep moving forward, by all means, ‘goal away.’ If you’re more like me and know roughly what you want to do, Set out and start exploring.
The main thing is to get going.
You’ll want to create an action plan so you can keep working toward the goal of getting out of the crappy job.
Having an action plan is a little different than goals, but it’s very similar. The action plan is an assessment to see where you are and where you still need to go. It will give you an idea of the work you will still need to do. My workbook goes at this from the angle of getting out of your job. But much of the content will still apply even if you are interested in staying in your career or changing career paths. Much of it deals with the assessment of where you are money-wise and helps lay out a plan for where you want to go. You’ll need to look at your finances and figure out how to pay down debt if you have it and how to build an emergency fund.
You need to have a sizeable emergency fund of at least six months’ wages. A nest egg will be the biggest stress reliever in your life. The fastest way to not feel trapped by your job anymore is to have no debt and have a large emergency fund. If you have debt, start paying it off by taking a little extra off the top of every paycheck. Start chipping away.
Get an emergency fund of cash, so you don’t feel so trapped in that crappy job.
Some people call this the FU fund. I use the terms nest egg or emergency fund. Either way, it’s all the same thing.
An emergency fund is very liquid and usually in your local savings account. It’s a quantity of cash you can access quickly in case something goes wrong. Most people recommend at least six months of salary.
Mine is a fair bit larger than that. The size you shoot for is up to you. What is your comfort zone? What amount will give you the best peace of mind when you go to bed at night? That’s the quantity for which you’ll need to shoot. You’ll need someplace to keep it where you can get at it within a couple of hours or the next day. I recommend a checking account or savings account.
If the furnace goes out or the roof starts leaking, you’ll have cash available to fix it rather than putting the repair on your credit card like so many people do. It will come in handy if you happen to lose your job. Rent and utilities still come due. At least you’ll have the cash to cover them until you figure out a plan.
I recommend taking 20 percent of your paycheck as soon as you get it and sticking it in an account. Take this money out even before the bills get paid. If your income vs. expenses ratio is right, the money should be there; it’s probably just not getting allotted correctly. Nest egg development is something I cover extensively in the free course. I believe it’s that important.
Start some side hustles so you have the confidence you can make cash on your terms.
And, finally, the confidence builder. If your goal is to get a new job or switch career paths, this might not apply to you.
If you are going the entrepreneurial route, this step is essential. Many people have the mind and the desire to do something; they need to know it’s going to work before they get the guns a-blazin’. Start a little side hustle around your desired goal and see if you can make money at it.
Years ago, when I started my first blog, the first money I made was such an emotional upshift. It validated the ‘what ifs’ and gave me confidence that I could make it work. When I made the first sale of my book, that was the uplift I needed to promote it more and then write another. If you have any drought in yourself, get out there and find a way to get that first big win. The first win will give you the confidence to get out of the employee mindset and into the entrepreneurial mindset. You’ll know you can make money on your terms.
Hopefully, this article will make Mondays a little smoother. Having some clear goals and ideas on how you are going to achieve them is half the battle.
The biggest problem with Mondays is your body’s resistance to doing something you don’t want to do. Just like when it fights off a cold, it’s trying to tell you something isn’t right. When life is flowing well, and you can make money on your terms, Monday morning will send you off with a spring in your step.
Till next time, be safe.
Kevin