What motivates you the most? For the past few years I’ve been mastering the art of self...

What motivates you the most?

For the past few years I’ve been mastering the art of self motivation successfully which has been challenging considering I was diagnosed with clinical depression among other things that I’ve been fighting against nearly my whole life. I always say...

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Alisha233 · 31-35, F

Work motivates me the most..its a good reason why I faithfully get out of bed when im scheduled to. Sometimes I wonder if I were to put half the effort I put into work, into my personal life what more I could accomplish! 😆🙈

OlderSometimesWiser · F

If that approach works for you, great. For me it does not.

My love and care for my family and friends does not get negated because I can’t defeat my clinical depression, which I’ve been battling for over 40 years, and oftentimes leaves me barely able to take care of basic hygiene and get out of the house. For me, loving others unfortunately doesn’t change that fact nor does it miraculously produce motivation. But it certainly doesn’t take away from my feelings for them, doesn’t mean they don’t matter.

So I would very much resist feeling like my inability to act, to prove my love to them means that I don’t care. That I’m making a choice not to act. For me, that’s just another entry from the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” school of psychology. Which only makes me blame myself and drive myself further into despair. Exactly the kind of thinking that makes it even more difficult to extricate myself from the clutches of depression.

But again, there’s no one size fits all answer. Gotta just find what works for you.

Reject · 26-30, M

@OlderSometimesWiser Yeah. There is no easy answer to this complicated problem or this just wouldn’t happen to people. I have to make it simple in my head or I do end up with your conclusion of “I can’t”. If I think about it at all, I can easily say I can’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. However if I do that, I simply won’t move. I have to threaten myself which is why I question how healthy it is, but nothing else works. I think you’re right in that just because you’re unable doesn’t mean you don’t care, but I refuse to belief that for myself or I’ll get sucked right back into the worst of my depression. I can be entirely wrong to say the things I do to myself. I acknowledge that, but being wrong makes me move.