The Sunday Scaries
“A sunday well spent brings a week of content.” ― proverb
We’ve all been there. It’s Sunday, and that feeling deep down in our gut starts to creep in. It’s the pre-Monday, “Oh-God-why-isn’t-this-a-four-day-weekend?” dreary feeling. It’s the “What am I even doing with my life?” feeling. It’s the “I love my job. I love my job. I love my job… If I keep saying it, it’ll come true...” feeling. It’s the feeling that lingers through Monday and into Wednesday, as you count down to the weekend, feeling -- and it's the “hamster-wheel-of-life” feeling, because you’ve been on it for nearly a decade and you’re not quite sure whether it’s worth it all.
Where am I even going?
At 27, I felt like I had it all. As an immigrant kid from Bangladesh who had spent the first ten years of his life there, then moved to grow up in Flushing, Queens in a one-bedroom apartment where six people lived together -- now, my townhouse, my sports car with the red leather seats, my double degree in Computer Science and Management from a prestigious institution, my office -- all of it showed that I had MADE IT. And yet, I dreaded every Monday. I was deep in my finance job at one of the most successful hedge funds in the world and I experienced that feeling. I kept asking myself --- there’s supposed to be a K’ABoom! Where’s the K’ABoom?!
I knew I couldn’t make dramatic changes on a whim -- I had far too much to lose and I didn’t exactly have a trust fund to fall back on. So, I started to take it a day at a time to start to figure out: Where am I?... and What do I do next?
Between the years 2010 and 2018 (and onward), I started to set aside 30 minutes every Sunday to answer those two simple questions. Much as you might spend your Sunday doing chores to keep your house running and in order, I started to spend a portion of every Sunday thinking about and writing down where I am and what I wanted next out of my life.
For some reason, when I first started to practice this simple exercise, it just made me feel better. It instantly helped me stop feeling restless and I immediately started to feel like I was in the driver's seat for a change.
Through that nine-year period, the simple exercise of pausing and reflecting unlocked unparalleled productivity and growth for me as a person. I went from being a Product Manager at a hedge fund to quitting my job to starting my own company. I went on to scale my company from 0 to 70 people and went from $0 in revenue to millions in annual recurring revenue. I went from being CEO of that successful venture to selling it to a market leader and joining their executive team as the youngest Senior Vice President in the company’s history. It doesn’t stop there: We then went on to sell that company to one of the largest technology companies in the world.
Throughout that ten-year period, I went from living paycheck-to-paycheck to being financially independent. Throughout that ten-year period, I went from being reactive to my life and just doing what was expected of me, to taking control of a vision for my life and executing on it.
As Step 1 of this Unstoppable Life system, I want you to start practicing this simple exercise, because it will be your first step in assessing your current situation and starting to become more proactive about your life, just one week at a time.
Most importantly, this will be your first step in eradicating the Sunday Scaries, the Sunday angst, the Sunday “What am I even doing with my life?!” existential crisis.
This ten-year period of productivity and success resulted in large part from this simple exercise I call Unstoppable Sundays. Every Sunday, I sit down, I open up my document (which is now 200+ pages), and I answer the two questions: Where am I? And… What do I do next?
The most important thing to do is to start carving out just 30 minutes every Sunday, and start to take your time reflecting on these two questions and recording the answers in this document.
Because I’ve been using the same document over the years, I’m able to scroll back years at a time to review how I was feeling and what I was tackling on any given Sunday. Because I write down my thoughts, I’m able to really think through and conceptualize my deepest subconscious feelings.
Your ability to write well, your ability to write something that may sound wrong, or your likelihood to “get it wrong” -- NONE of these things matters. This document is for you, by you, and so you have to treat it as an extension of your inner thoughts. All this does is to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, which then allows you to take a step back and really understand what is going on.
I also like starting with a seven-day view, because so many personal development books tell you to think big, dream big, and you’ll accomplish it all. That’s just plain unrealistic. I get it; I’ve been there. There are existing commitments, real constraints, bills to pay, and things to finish. So, I always like to prompt you to start by reflecting on where you are and getting your week in order. Over time, you can start to get even more proactive about your next month, then your next year. And as you start to appreciate how you will operate within your current situation just that much better, we can start to think bigger and figure out what walls to knock down to remodel the house and make it your dream house (and life)!
It’s important not to overcomplicate this. All you need to do is open up a Word document on a Sunday, write down the date, and start to answer these two questions. Easy! And from my experience and what I’ve heard from our community practicing Unstoppable Sundays, you’ll quickly start to feel at ease about the week ahead instead of trying to escape from the Sunday Scaries.
The simple practice of doing this every Sunday does a few things for me. First, it eliminates my Sunday anxieties. It provides an immediate outlet for all the feelings that might otherwise rush through my head about Monday. Second, it allows me to stay tethered to a stream of consciousness. I am easily able to look back at where I was last Sunday and what I had committed to doing and how I was feeling, and thus I’m able to compare to see whether this Sunday I’m doing better or worse. And, third, it allows me to be proactive about my situation instead of trying to escape it; I do this by laying out an action plan for the next seven days.
These two questions of Where am I? and What do I do next? are seemingly simple. In the next section, I'll walk you through how to practice your Unstoppable Sunday.