Monday Motivation
This week’s Monday Motivation is a little weird, but stick with me.
This one occurred to me when I was stuck in horrible traffic last week on the freeway. I was really frustrated, and I thought, “How can I put myself in a better mood?”
And then I thought, “UGH! That’s such an annoying question!”
I just wanted to be in a bad mood, you know? So I switched gears and pictured a TOTALLY ANNOYING character in a car next to me, trying to boost my mood.
“That’s so annoying!” I mentally shouted at her. “Leave me alone!”
And then I imagined a bunch of these characters, getting out of their cars to SING and DANCE as if we were all in a MUSICAL.
“You idiots!!” I imagined yelling at them. “Can’t you see all this traffic?! This is no time to be happy!”
But they remained relentlessly cheerful, even in the face of setbacks.
Basically, I leaned into my bad mood. Fully embraced it. And I argued with these imaginary people who were trying to cheer me up.
There’s something strangely satisfying about digging into your mood. And ironically, after a while, this whole mental exercise actually ended up improving my mood a bit. Maybe I was feeling the emotion so intensely it just burned out faster. Or maybe thinking of all those characters started to amuse me on some level. Or both.
Either way, I think there might be something to this. You can try it out yourself and see what you think.
For example, if you’re worried about something, you could picture an annoying character saying…
And then you can think, “No! Leave me alone to worry! My worries are REAL, and I want to spend time fretting over them!”
Then picture that character enthusiastically trying to paint you a big “Don’t Worry” wall mural (or some other grand gesture) while you tell them, “You’re wasting your time!”
If you don’t want to picture cartoon characters, you can picture actual humans.
Either way, just imagine the most annoying folks ever, doing increasingly outlandish things to cheer you up. All while you remain dedicated to your bad mood.
If this doesn’t change your mood, at least it’s a way to pass the time and think of something interesting until your mood changes on its own.
OK, I hope you have a great week ahead!
~Adrienne
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Past Monday Motivations + Newsletters
A fun book I illustrated!
Adrienne, you just crack me up! Your little characters are so silly they make me giggle! I love them. 😍
Thanks for the reminder not to take life so seriously. It definitely helps taking it to the extreme to realize how much you can change your mood in a matter of minutes! Have a great day & enjoy that ridiculous California traffic. Ugh!
Several years ago I was carefully walking home from the store on snow and ice. Encountered an old Mountain Man type who was grimly pushing his old bicycle through the snow, gripping a homerolled cigarette in his teeth. I smiled at him and said "Not a very good day for bicycles, is it?" He said "She'll get better. She always does."
Good advice.