Good Morning, Monday: Inspiration for a new week
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Monday Inspiration: If you’ve fallen off the wagon of good intentions, it’s never too late to get back on! There are 52 Mondays in a year. Good morning, Monday, it’s time for a fresh start.
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Do you remember your New Year’s resolutions— which may have been something like, eating better and exercising more?
Or did those resolutions fall by the wayside, months ago? If you’ve fallen off the wagon of good intentions, it’s never too late to get back on track, whatever the date on the calendar is. And you can, of course, create new resolutions year-round.
Mondays are a particularly good day to revisit your resolutions, according to a joint public health initiative from Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Syracuse universities called the Monday Campaigns.
Monday Inspiration
Monday is the day of the week when most transition back to a more structured routine—and when they are more likely to search for health-related information on the Internet, start a diet or exercise program, quit smoking, and make doctor appointments.
Mondays offer “fresh starts” for many. A day to get back on track, according to a survey of 1,500 adults. This day offers an opportunity to celebrate a “mini-New Year” 52 times a year.
The idea of a kick-starting Monday came from research at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins.
Though not all studies are consistent, there’s evidence “that periodic prompts can effectively enhance diet, weight loss, and exercise behaviors,” with one study showing that weekly prompts were better than prompts given every three weeks.
How to Jumpstart Monday
Here’s the gist of what to do on Monday:
1. Hit the reset button
Hit the reset button. Forget what happened (or didn’t happen) over the weekend.
2. Set intentions for the week
Be specific and make your goals attainable in small actionable steps (such as “I will take a 30-minute walk three times this week,” “I will add a cup of vegetables to my dinners,” or “I will drink water in place of soda”).
3. Share and be accountable
Get everyone on board. Informing friends and family of your intentions makes you more accountable, and enlisting others as social support helps motivate you to stick with the plan.
4. Stay the course
Keep at it. But if you lose your way, get back on track the next day—or at least by the next Monday.
More Way to Motivate Mondays
There are lots of ways to get motivated on Mondays. In addition to the more general Healthy Monday Campaign, the initiative also includes:
- Meatless Monday
- Move It Monday
- DeStress Monday
- Quit and Stay Quit Monday.