If I’m being honest, I don’t understand the love/hate titles assigned to Friday afternoon and Monday mornings. Sure, I look forward to certain weekend activities, eager for the experience, but I find a brand spanking new week equally thrilling. Many individuals slip into a depression on Sunday, dreading the next morning’s alarm. Maybe they only require a slight shift in thinking.

Researchers tell us a part of our brain seeks pleasure. What gets lost in translation is, you activate that section when you expect pleasure, not the actual pleasure itself. We can leverage this. It needn’t be an extravagance, overly complicated, or time-consuming. Queuing your prized playlist, wearing a favorite shirt, or planning lunch with a friend, may create sufficient excitement for your pleasure-seeking brain.

There are standard recommendations about getting enough sleep, creating a plan, and preparing specific tasks over the weekend. Consider starting your day early, avoiding those who complain about Monday, or catching ten minutes of something motivational, like a podcast or a video. See Monday like a fresh opportunity. Listen to your inner voice telling you, “Get up. Stop stalling. Get a move on. What’s taking you so long?”

How will you start your Monday?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

We are creatures of habit, comforted by familiar routines, and driven by homeostatic responses to maintain equilibrium. The world changes, we change, and what once brought a sense of security stops working. We must question our beliefs, values, goals, duties, obligations, hobbies, commitments, possessions, and even our relationships when they don’t deliver.

How do we handle old stuff? How do we release what no longer holds value as we reach for the new, the improved and updated, and the innovative? Items received as gifts can create feelings of guilt when we contemplate disposing of them. Things we grew up with cause nostalgia to rear its ugly head. Then there are the hard decisions. We bought the perfect piece they guaranteed would change our life until it didn’t. Dumping the item means admitting we made a mistake.

We carry baggage, burdens collected over many years, that we can’t seem to relinquish. My grandmother said we should use it up, wear it out, or pass it along. If something is not helping you move forward and attain your goals, it is hindering your progress. Letting reminders of the past go takes strength as we struggle to summon the courage to face a brighter future.

What weight are you carrying that is holding you back?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

It is a secretive club. The members rarely advertise their affiliation in public. They recognize their peers when they meet, and something passes between them, a nod, a smile, a bond. We are people who read. Research seems to support the conclusion that brilliant individuals, the ones who affect the world, read. They expose their minds to diverse subjects, and submerge themselves deep into a topic, knowing the exercise will propel them to higher standards of personal and professional excellence.

When avid readers meet, their conversations move with ease, covering their preferred genres, recent reads, classics, excellent reads, transformative books, and the hallowed ground of life-changing tomes. Details aren’t necessary. We know the feeling of reading a story that alters our chemistry, transforming us from the inside out. Words lift our mood by confirming we are not alone. Memorable characters have lofty aspirations and impossible dreams. They struggle to do the right thing and become better humans.

Good books are mirrors reflecting our inner truths and revealing the pathways which connect our past and present to our hopes for a brighter future. As we turn the pages, we laugh, cry, tremble in fear, and rejoiced in the protagonists’ victories. We increase our intelligence, develop our brains, improve our imagination, and boost levels of concentration and focus. If we are lucky, exposure to knowledge changes not just our life, but the lives of those around us.

What is on your reading list?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Make way for 2021!

2020 was a mad, mad year, but I am so grateful I had you by my side. You made the year better by being in it. Thank you for sharing the ride, a smile, a laugh, or a well-timed bit of advice.

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. —T. S. Eliot

No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again. — Jack Kornfield

Cheers to a new year!  Here’s to discovering brilliant success and effervescent happiness in this new year.  Here’s to another chance for us to get it right.

Happy New Year.

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

This New Year’s Eve promises to be devoid of customary celebrations and joyous fanfare. They have canceled fireworks, giant disco ball drops, and gatherings of any size. Parades, 5k runs, and sporting events have morphed into virtual events. Exciting hotel rendezvous with your closest friends, flowing champagne, and passionate midnight kisses to ensure a prosperous year are not on the evening’s agenda. We won’t host house parties with homemade Jell-O shots, raucous games, and a groaning table covered with a potluck of traditional dishes. 2020 rewrote every previous definition of abnormal events.

Nothing matters as I wait, anticipating the midnight countdown to close the books on the past twelve months. I have been waiting for this exact minute, the moment the cosmic fulcrum tips and permits us to consider the inconceivable and allows us to hope. My inner conviction says the sun will rise each morning, that evening follows day, and the stars and planets proceed along a predictable path. I believe in the inherent goodness of human beings. It sustains my long vigil, for the better world I know lies beyond the horizon.

Somehow it seems appropriate for our wishes are born in darkness, in a cold, quiet night, while nobody is watching, where no one can see. One tiny flicker is all it takes.

How will you mark this New Year’s Eve?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Today we stand on the cusp of a new year, a clean slate, a chance to start again. Before us lies 8,760 hours’ worth of opportunities to work on your resolutions. Or are you struggling with your first steps? The holidays hang on, lulling us with over-indulgence, followed by lethargy. It demands a great effort to shake the laid back atmosphere. A journey requires an approximate destination. Knowing your intention lets you determine your general direction and set your course. You don’t need every step plotted and planned.

Maybe you have written, highlighted, and adorned your goals with pretty pictures, but analysis holds you, hostage. Your stack of self-help books grows until they become a pedestal for your remote control. Action, getting off the couch, changes your perception. Things look different, and you react in unexpected ways. Trying something you have never done can be scary, but it may prove to be exhilarating.

There are plenty of reasons to hesitate and move with caution. 2020 taught us we are not in control of events, no matter how much we plan. That first step could be a doozy. It might be the best thing you have ever attempted. You must ask yourself which you fear more, finding yourself a year from now sitting on the same couch, with your life intact, or living in a future where you attain your dreams. Don’t wait for it to happen. Dare to stride boldly toward your destiny.

What “first steps” are you taking today?

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Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer