Episode 271 | Watch on YouTube | Listen on Buzzsprout

I remember dreading Monday on Sunday night. After a while, I was dreading it on Saturday. Then it got to where I could feel it on Friday. The weekend was just getting started, and I was already thinking about how fast it would go. Then it would be Sunday again, and Monday I’d be right back on the treadmill.

The pay was good. The company was great. And I could have given you a long list of things that were wrong with working there. Anybody looking from the outside could have given me a long list of reasons I should feel grateful to be there.

I should be grateful

That’s what makes this so hard to talk about. You know what bothers you about the job. But somebody looking at your salary and the company you work for may wonder what you have to complain about. After a while, you may start asking yourself that same question.

And the reasons are real. The paycheck matters. You may work with good people. You might have spent years getting to a place where you can finally breathe a little financially. Of course you’re grateful for that.

But think about what was happening to me on Friday. I had the whole weekend ahead of me, and the coming workweek already had a piece of it. I had reasons for dreading it. The salary and the company’s reputation were real, and so was what I experienced working there. How long could I keep telling myself I should be happy while spending my weekends dreading the next week?

What part of Monday are you dreading?

There’s a difference between dreading the work you’re going back to and dreading the idea that you’ll be doing it for another ten years. On Sunday night they can feel about the same.

Picture an engineer who still enjoys getting called in to figure out why something failed. That might be the best hour of his week. What he dreads is opening the calendar Monday morning and realizing there’s barely an hour left for that kind of work. If the next promotion means even less of it, you can see why something he worked toward for years might start to lose its appeal.

Someone else might have all the time in the world to do the work they were hired for and still feel like they’ve done all of it they want to do. They can both say, “I dread Monday.” I’d be curious what each of them would miss if they left.

It’s hard to picture what you’d go to

Ask somebody what they’d give up if they left a good job and they can usually get specific. They know what hits the bank account. They know how much vacation they have. They know who they’d miss.

Ask them what they’d go to, and the answer might be “something different.” That’s a tough comparison. On one side you’ve got a life you can describe down to the dollar. On the other side you’ve got two words.

Maybe you’ve been in the same kind of work so long that every possibility you picture looks like another version of your current job. Different company. Different boss. Same Monday.

Then you meet somebody who’s doing something you’d never considered. They teach a class. They bought a small business. They turned something they enjoyed doing into part of how they earn a living. You start wondering how they did it. What did they know that you don’t? What would something like that look like for you?

That’s what I wanted when I listened to people talk about work they loved. I wanted to see what was possible. It gave me something to imagine beyond another week of the same thing.

Think back to a Monday when you actually looked forward to something you were going to do. Maybe it was helping somebody figure out a problem. Maybe you finally got a few hours to work on something you wanted to see through. What was it about that day you’d want more of?

If you could keep the parts of your work you’d choose again, what would you want your Mondays to look like?

Want help getting your interests and possibilities on paper?

Get my free Calling Exercise 👉🏻 My free calling exercise can help you explore what you love, what you have to offer, and where those things might lead. ⤵️

🌟 Download the free calling exercise at DaleCallahan.com/calling.

Choose one possibility and one step.

You got the salary. You got the title. Now build something that’s yours. That could be a company. It could be a path into work you’ve always wanted to do.

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