We've all been there. The agonizing dread that starts to creep in as the Sunday evening hours fade all too quickly. Monday. The very word strikes fear in every man, woman, and child. But never fear, here are five ways to kick all the awful things that come with the first day of the week to the curb!

1. Put on a really awesome playlist.

Play all of your favorite songs on repeat and have a jam session. I guarantee it will at least trick your brain for a second into believing you're not in the car on the way to work. Optional: dance like nobody's watching.

2. Do something that makes you happy.

Just because Mondays are awful doesn't mean everything about them has to be. Find even the smallest thing that brings you joy, and do that thing. Go to Starbucks. Take a bubble bath. Eat ice cream out of the carton.

3. Make someone else's Monday less Monday-ish.

Sometimes the best way to receive joy give it. If you can't manage to escape the Monday blues yourself, at least find a way to help someone else. You can pay if forward, or at least not cut them off in traffic on the highway during rush hour.

4. Laugh.

Leave your wallet at home? Spill coffee on yourself? Fall down the stairs? (don't be discouraged, this is an often occurrence for me too.) Instead of instinctively adding the event to the running list in your head of why Mondays are awful, try a different approach. Laugh it off. Learn to laugh at yourself, and laugh on Mondays.

5. Change your thinking.

I know we all just want to skip over this one and laugh at more GIFs while we all sit in misery together waiting for Monday to end, but please hear me out. Maybe, just maybe, the reason why all of our Mondays are so awful is that we're telling ourselves that they will be before they even start.

We get so caught up in waiting all week for the weekend only to dread the start of the weekday. It is hard to have joy when you chase after something that is always fleeting, and even harder when you write off Monday before it even begins.

Stop for a second and think. How much better might your day be if instead of waking up and thinking, "Ugh, it's a Monday" and saying instead, I'm so glad it's Monday!"

I know this is a new concept, but maybe if we stop telling ourselves how awful our Monday is going to be, it just might not turn out half-bad.

So dare to fight the Monday blues. More than that, dare to enjoy Monday. Break the "I hate Monday" mantra that our society clings to.

Stare Monday in the face, and smile. Stop looking at it as a day too far from the weekend and see it as another day to live, grow, move, and change the world around you however you can. Strive not only to tolerate your next Monday but to enjoy it, and you just might cure the Monday blues for good.