If you’re depressed, sometimes you need something like exercise or spending time with your people (irl, not online).

If you’re depressed, sometimes you need therapy, sometimes you need meds.

Sometimes you have to fake it first.

Sometimes you need to make yourself do the thing.

Sometimes you need to be kind to yourself and give yourself rest and acceptance.

I mentioned this in a post last week but I use the reward system thing. If I want to watch a movie, play games or even just sit and eat some ice cream I’ll make myself do something to earn it. It doesn’t even have to be something significant so even just a a quick tidy up or having a shower is enough because it all adds up.

Start stuff, then maybe be motivated to continue. I can be depressed and in a dirty apartment, or depressed in a clean apartment. Depressed in a clean apartment is nicer. So, I do a little and sometimes that turns into a lot.

Find a few sheets of stickers that you like. Every time you do something thats hard, write it down and give yourself a sticker. Then when you’re having a bad day, you can look at the list of shit you’ve accomplished, and the awesome stickers you’ve earned.

Necessity. When the fridge and cupboards have been empty long enough, I can usually talk myself into going grocery shopping.

I just do stuff out of habit

Hey, reality check. You… You don’t.

Motivation isn’t a real thing. Motivation is like happiness. It’s a fleeting gift, you shall not seek it or it will never come.

Motivation is born of discipline. Discipline is real.

https://youtu.be/tdbORXEmbnk

By telling myself that whatever I’m doing is an investment in the future version of me

I have a couple of mottos

One is “Semper Paratis” (always prepared)

The other is “Omnes Enim Nancy” (All for Nancy name changed the name of protect my woman’s identity)

If I can’t face doubt something for myself, I just think about how everything I do affects her too

I start with the smallest, actionable step. And then I don’t beat myself up if I can’t do more- it’s basically figuring out what the smallest thing you can do to make things better is, and then doing that. If I need a shower, what can I do to make it as easy as possible. Then I plan to do the bare minimum but if I find more motivation as I’m doing the task then great! I can have a full shower. If not, well I’ve only committed to doing the bare minimum so if I need to be in and out in 5 minutes that’s ok too.

I focus less on getting motivation and more on structuring my life so that I can work with less. I’ve accepted that I am always going to feel low energy but it’s a lot easier to manage when everything is a habit on autopilot and my life is super organized. So the more I can autopilot things I need to do due to a very structured routine, the easier it is to cope with low energy because I am making fewer decisions.

The crushing weight of purposelessness

This seems to be working for me so far…

What are your values in life? To have a rich social life? To be healthy? To be successful at work? To have a clean, welcoming place?

Ok pick one small everyday change that aligns with one or many of those values. (E.g. do your dishes after you eat - aligns with clean house and social).

You could probably do this for a week or two. Keep framing it in terms of how it aligns with your values, and any success you’re having.

However, you’ll probably fail. That’s when we have to pay attention to emotions. Why did you stop? How do you feel about that? (Anxiety and simple distraction for me. It is mentally cheaper to ignore a task than overcome my anxiety until the task becomes the primary source. So my brain makes me forget to do the basic thing ahead of time. These add up when it’s literally EVERYTHING)

Now you can choose how to react. Do you simply need to keep trying? Do you need to reevaluate the tasks value proposition? Do you need to work on a higher value or lower cost task? In other words, how do i make my actions better aligned with my values such that it’s worth doing?

Now do the thing you chose. (This is the Bojack meme part)

I’m only a few weeks into this but it feels like I’ve unlocked a super power, i have nonzero motivation when I’m feeling up and i can at least point to the clean sink when I’m feeling down. Just having a thought process and decision framework where there was none before is huge! This is coming off YEARS of feeling hopeless and wandering onto the “not worth living side”. So while it’s still fresh and fragile, I’ll take a few weeks of hope at any rate.

it’s pretty simple really: i don’t