'I HATE Tuesdays,’ said one of my children the other day, promptly proceeding to list all the awful subjects he was forced to endure at school on a Tuesday. I laughed. 

I used to say the same thing in a previous job when Tuesday was the day crammed full of meetings from morning to night. The Tuesday feeling back then was even worse than the Monday one we are all familiar with. 

 It is very common to have a day of the week you dread for one reason or another. 

I know someone who hates the feeling of being alone on a Sunday, someone else who detests Thursdays and many people who worry about being back at work on Monday before the previous week is even at an end. But it doesn’t have to be this way! 

 Ever since I learned that our brains are far more likely to concentrate on the challenging than the joyful I have made a conscious effort to turn this phenomena around. 

Recently I have tried to come with a positive reason to look forward to every individual day of the week. It doesn’t even matter how trivial the reason is... It helps just to remind your brain that there is something positive in every day. 

To show you just how trivial these reasons can be, my Thursday reason is that Sainsburys publish their new Nectar point offers on a Thursday. 

Very minor perhaps, but in our family we save Nectar points all year for use at Christmas, so this minor weekly reminder triggers the larger thought of a happy family time to come each time I think of it.  

Tuesdays are now a day I look forward to rather than dread. It is the day I send in my article to this newspaper. 

I almost always get a cheery message from the editor Nick in return despite the manic nature of final editing. 

Knowing that I will get at least one friendly email in a sea of “things to do” emails makes me smile each week even before it arrives! 

Wednesday I often manage to fit in a hot chocolate with a friend when my daughter goes to an evening club at church and on Friday I can often finish work early. Days off at the weekend speak for themselves. 

I am still working on a reason for Monday, but I will find one! More importantly, what I have noticed is that the exercise itself somehow makes each week just a little bit more positive. 

When you decide to find a reason to look forward to each day, you find that anything you might have otherwise been dreading fades a little and loses a little of its significance. 

There is much we can do to alter our own outlook on life, thereby making happy things more joyful and hard things easier to bear. 

Finding a personal reason to look forward to each individual day is just one small trick amongst many others. 

In any event, may I wish you all a positive week, whatever day of the week it is and hope that you find something to look forward to on each individual day.