Today didn’t have to be the most depressing day of 2014

It’s official. Today was the most depressing day of the year. The morning commute was probably slow and the weather was atrocious, but it didn’t have to be the most depressing day of 2014.

Today is the day that everyone is supposedly feeling as though they need change in their lives and that their daily routines have already started to grind them down. But our bet is that this isn’t necessarily the case.

Here’s an example. We at Honeydew have actually started this week feeling very positive about what January has to bring. This feeling has also been countered by many others in our office so what is it that is bringing most people down? It must be work!

If you notice that many of your colleagues are looking particularly gloomy today, then you should really do something about it. Ask your employees what challenges or tasks lie ahead of them that they are looking forward to the most. Or perhaps organise a challenge with your team to give everyone a giggle and something to work towards. This doesn’t have to be too excessive, even just taking part in a local fun run or a set day where people bring home cooked food in to share. A great example comes from one organisation in London that challenged their employees to see who could take the funniest picture of their commute that morning to encourage them to think about the positives of any situation rather than concentrating on the negative.

Even the London Underground has some positivity in a few of their stations. Staff are challenged to write a positive or funny quote each day to share with commuters. ‘Thoughts of Angel’ being the most notorious station for this.

There are a whole host of things you can do to perk up anyone around you and the office is a great place to start. Let us know what you ended up doing to change today and we will share the joy with the rest of our followers!