TGIF, Sunday Dread and Monday Blues
Are you living for the weekends?
TGIF. Four letters that say so much.
We’ve made an entire cultural ritual out of celebrating Friday. We count down the days until the weekend, pack as much living as we can into Saturday, and before Sunday is even over, we start dreading Monday. And then we do it all over again…
Right now you may be basking in the energy of Friday or Saturday. Enjoying a little wine, friends and family. But before you know it, Sunday will be back. And my question is, how will you be feeling then?
I see so many people stuck in a cycle. Work hard all week, enjoy a little freedom on the weekend, and then brace to do it again. I understand — for many years, that was me too.
We accept that five days of our week are something to get through, so we can enjoy the other two and buy nice things. But often, we get to a point where the weekend hardly gives us a chance to catch our breadth, before Monday hits again.
If you are tired of this cycle, I’ve created something to help you break it. It’s called The Sunday Reset, and it’s designed to help you reconnect with yourself and begin creating a life that feels better all week long.
Because the best way to reclaim our weekends is to start creating weekdays we don’t need to escape from.
But first, let me tell you why this is so personal for me.
My “Sunday Scaries” Years
While I haven’t experienced them for a while, I remember the “Sunday Scaries” well. The anxiety rising in my chest. The pit in my stomach. Starting late Sunday morning, sometimes early afternoon, and always there by late afternoon.
I didn’t have a name for it at the time, but later someone mentioned “Sunday Scaries” and I was like, wow, that’s it.
I went through a couple of phases of trying to manage this sense of anxiety, heaviness and dread all mixed into one.
There was my Sunday Funday phase. Wine in the afternoon. Dinner out. Anything to make the weekend feel longer and keep my mind off my looming to-do list. While this approach did prolong the weekend, waking up on Monday morning tired, anxious and sometimes a little hungover wasn’t exactly an improvement.
Then there was my more mature, proactive approach: tackling my to-do list late Sunday afternoon, with a glass of wine to make it more palatable. (Notice a theme here? Yeah, I’ll get to that in another post…)
That approach did get me organized for the week, and the wine numbed my nerves while I planned. I started Mondays feeling more prepared and tended to get more done.
But the Sunday heaviness was still there. Getting to sleep was still hard, with to-dos flying around my brain. And in hindsight, the wine didn’t help me understand what I was feeling. I just had a better process for managing my endless to-dos.
I always assumed the heaviness of Sunday was because my job was simply too much for me. I had this constant feeling that I couldn’t keep up, even though my performance reviews, promotions and compensation suggested otherwise.
In hindsight, all that self-flagellation wasn’t just unhelpful. It was completely unnecessary. And rather than questioning my ability to keep up, I wish I’d gotten curious about why I felt the dread in the first place.
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Living Two Different Lives
For a long time, I felt like I lived two different lives.
There was weekend me, who could relax, have fun, be spontaneous and just be, for a short while at least.
And then there was workweek me, who had responsibilities, expectations, deadlines and a whole lot of people counting on her. The version of me who expected herself to be a productivity machine and felt inadequate when she fell short, simply by being human.
Monday morning meant putting on the power suit or dress, makeup, getting on the train, walking into the office and stepping back into the corporate box. Professional mask on and ready to go.
And I was good at it. I built a successful career, worked with wonderful people, had opportunities I never imagined I’d have, and achieved things that would have seemed impossible to my 22-year-old self.
I also genuinely liked parts of my job. Which made the whole thing even more confusing. Because if I liked my job, and I was successful at it, why was I spending so much of my time feeling like I needed to escape it?
Why did it feel so bloody exhausting?
Why did Friday feel like freedom and Monday feel so heavy?
And most importantly, why had I accepted this ongoing loop as “life,” without questioning if there was a better way for me to live?
What If the Sunday Scaries Are Simply Telling Us Something?
I wish I’d understood then what I understand now. That the feelings we experience in our bodies often give us information that our minds haven’t clocked yet. And that rather than trying to make those uncomfortable feelings go away, we can get curious instead.
I spent years learning to manage my stress better. I meditated. I did mindset work. I got better at managing my calendar and creating space in my day. But the more inner work I did to manage my stress, the more I began to recognize that my angst was coming from something deeper.
I had changed. My definition of success had changed. And the very inconvenient truth was that the life I had worked so hard to create wasn’t aligned with the person I was becoming.
It wasn’t that I had made the wrong choices. Those choices had served me incredibly well for a long time. But I was evolving, and my outer life hadn’t quite caught up.
I think this happens a lot. We get so busy doing what needs to be done, and taking care of everyone else, that we stop checking in with ourselves.
And when something feels uncomfortable, we try to fix the feeling, or simply numb it, instead of getting at the cause. We distract ourselves, pour a glass of wine, scroll, book another vacation, and do the countdown to Friday.
Or we decide we need to become better at managing everything. We tell ourselves we need to be more productive, more organized and more disciplined. I did this for a long time.
As if the solution to feeling overwhelmed is to become better at managing the overwhelm!
I eventually realized I was asking the wrong question. Instead of trying to numb or get rid of the Sunday dread, I learned to get curious about why it was there to begin with.
I stopped assuming this loop was the only way to live.
I started to let go of the belief that living for the weekend was simply the price of having a successful career and being able to buy nice things.
I tuned into the whispers of my soul and started ThriveWorthy.
Does All of This Mean You Need to Quit Your Job?
Definitely not. No one is suggesting you blow up your life. Sometimes Sunday dread is about something specific that can be addressed.
Maybe you have a big presentation coming up. Maybe your boss is unreasonable or unpredictable. Maybe you’re exhausted and need more sleep. Maybe you have 47 things to do and only enough time for 12.
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Not every uncomfortable feeling means your soul is calling you to quit your job and leave the country. Although, I remember having many Sundays when that seemed rather appealing….
But when the same feelings show up week after week, they’re worth listening to. And there are things you can do, short of leaving your job, to make it all work better.
Maybe your nervous system needs a reset. Maybe you need more rest or better boundaries. Maybe you’re giving too much of your energy and time away, or you’ve become so accustomed to being all things to all people that you’ve forgotten about your own needs.
Perhaps the work you once loved doesn’t light you up anymore. Or maybe there’s something you want to explore, but you’ve convinced yourself it’s not practical. And maybe you’re tired of spending so much of your life doing what you think you should do.
Here’s the thing: you don’t need to have the answers. But I can tell you from experience, and from coaching others, that it helps immensely to create enough space to ask the questions.
Because you deserve to live a life you love, most days, not just on the weekends.
What If We Stopped Living for the Weekends?
Imagine enjoying your Sundays without that familiar pit in your stomach. Waking up on Monday feeling reasonably good about the week ahead. Maybe even excited.
Imagine having energy left for yourself and the people you love at the end of a workday, rather than saving all your living for Saturday.
I’m not suggesting every day will be wonderful. Life is full of challenges, and there will always be demanding weeks, difficult people and responsibilities. After all, it’s the challenges that help us learn.
But I don’t believe we’re meant to spend most of our week longing for a weekend that flies by. And I’ve learned that creating a life that feels better does not necessarily require dramatic change.
Sometimes it’s an honest acknowledgment that something isn’t working. A conversation. A new habit. Or simply making a little more time for something that makes us feel like ourselves.
The important thing is that we begin paying attention to what our body is telling us, rather than automatically pushing through.
And that requires something many of us are bad at giving ourselves.
A little time, and space to think…
Reclaiming Sunday Is a Place to Start
Which brings me back to Sunday.
What if, instead of spending Sunday dreading Monday, or preparing ourselves to survive another week, we reclaimed some of that time for ourselves?
Not to become more productive. Not to squeeze in another “to-do”.
But to get out of our heads and back into our bodies. To regulate our nervous systems. To reflect on what gave us energy during the week and what depleted us. To reconnect with what we want more of in our lives. And to identify one small step we can take toward creating it.
Because the best way to reclaim our weekends is to start creating weekdays we don’t need to escape from.
Introducing The Sunday Reset
I wish I’d had something like this when I was deep in my loop of Sunday dread. So I’ve created it for you!
The Sunday Reset is a four-week, self-guided career and life reset designed to help you reconnect with yourself, understand what’s keeping you stuck, and begin making small, meaningful changes in how you live and work.
It’s built around a simple Sunday ritual. Grab your coffee, or your favorite drink, find a quiet spot and give yourself 30 minutes.
Now, if I know you, you’re probably already thinking, I don’t have time for this.
And I get it. I spent years feeling exactly the same way.
But here’s what I’d invite you to consider: What if you can’t afford not to make the time?
Because nothing changes if nothing changes. And if you’ve been feeling the same Sunday dread, the same exhaustion, or the same sense that something isn’t quite right, week after week, year after year, isn’t that worth doing something about?
You matter. How you feel matters. And you deserve to have a life that feels good to you, not just one that looks good on paper.
And if that doesn’t resonate, let’s be practical for a moment. How long can you keep showing up for everyone and everything around you, running on sheer willpower and adrenaline, without taking the time to fill your own cup?
At some point, the math stops working.
I want you to get to a place where you’re giving from alignment and overflow, rather than constantly running on empty.
The beauty of this reset is that while you do need to carve out a little uninterrupted time, you can do it on your own, whenever and wherever works for you.
Over four Sundays, you’ll explore where you are now, reconnect with what you really want, examine the beliefs and stories that may be holding you back, and identify small, aligned steps toward creating a life that feels better.
I’ve included powerful reflection exercises and tools I use with my private coaching clients, along with three guided audio practices: a 7-Minute Reset, Future Self Visualization and Evening Meditation. These tools are tried and tested with clients who have gotten results.
And remember, you don’t need to hate your job or be in a career crisis to benefit from this work. You might simply want more ease, more energy, or a deeper connection to yourself. Maybe you just want to make sure you’re spending your time in ways that actually matter to you.
Because the goal isn’t just to feel better on Sunday. It’s to create a life that feels better Monday through Friday, too.
The Sunday Reset is available at a founding price of $33 (regularly $55). Click below to get the fillable PDF workbook, future self visualization, and two meditations to reset your nervous system.
I would love to hear from you — — Do you find yourself living for the weekends? If you’ve managed to break that cycle, what helped you make the shift?
I’d love to hear.
PS — if you have any issues with check out for The Sunday Reset — please email me at alicia@thriveworthy.com.
I think it’s all set up correctly, but this is new so I want to be sure!
Want more inspiration and tools for creating a life and career that feel aligned?
Join the ThriveWorthy community here.
Listen to The ThriveWorthy Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Explore ThriveWorthy’s signature offerings here.
Sign up for Pathfinder — On Demand.
