I don't know about you, but I still sometimes get them -- those Sunday night blues. They started in junior high, got worse in high school, and progressed until I could hardly stand it in college. The anxious feeling of anticipating the week ahead somehow never left.
I find I make efforts to distract myself on Sunday night -- having late dinners or parties, going to the movies -- anything to treat Sunday night as still part of the weekend, albeit the end of the end. Maybe that's the problem -- seeing it as the end of so-called freedom.
Or, maybe it's more the threat of ensuing confrontation. Monday means waking up knowing that what you left off on Friday continues in exactly the same place. Only in fairytales did those little elves finish up what was left undone.
The antidote? One solution is to take it head on and not be distracted by those parties and movies but to actually enjoy them, rather than focusing on the fact that, once they end, your dreadful week will begin. Throw your own Sunday blues party, allowing everyone to complain and lament for 10 minutes apiece. By the fourth 10 minutes, nobody will be able to stand it and you'll start laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Seeing absurdity face-to-face may cure the ill. So, focus on the complaint: what is wrong and how can you fix it? Often we bellyache but don't want to do the work that healing requires. There are two kinds of medicine. One is for immediate symptom relief; the other is strategy-making to remedy the bad situation. It's like the pill vs. the regimen for both short and long-term approaches.
If the problem is a bad job, what else can you add or do that would make it better? If it's a bad boss, how else can you approach him or her? Then ask yourself what other job or boss you'd really prefer and assess how to start moving toward that goal. If you want to advance within your company, see if you can help solve the existing dilemmas within your organization -- even voluntarily if not asked -- which might just catapult you up.
Or, accentuate the positive to beat the blues by having something to look forward to during the week -- even if it's something small, like lunch or a visit to the art gallery with a friend on Wednesday or a ballroom dance class on Thursday night. Don't reserve all of your opportunities for excitement or relaxation for the weekend.
And, as a former labor negotiator, I know that a trade of five bad days of work for two good days off is a bad deal, no matter the price. The trick is to improve the five days and celebrate them so that our weekends, and our lives, really are free.
Make your luck happen.