Motivation and Mental Health: A Delicate Balancing Act

There are many pernicious side effects of depression.

Fluctuating appetite; social anxiety; disturbed sleep… the list is almost endless.

However, the one that impacts me most is motivation. Or, more accurately, the crippling lack of it.

It's incredibly frustrating as it's a quality that could, in theory, be of immeasurable help to me in actually tackling my depression. If I was able to greater motivate myself, then I could actively work on those areas of my life that - when not attended to - become fertile grounds for my depression.

The irony that depression blunts the very ability that could be the strongest weapon in your fight against it is not lost on me. But, depression is nothing if not ironic; it's the one thing it excels at being.

There's an added wrinkle in that I'm a freelance writer. I no longer have a boss hovering above me, cajoling me forwards: I am solely responsible for motivating myself.

Depression, that place where motivation goes to die, really doesn't help matters.

One of the upsides of all this is that our race's inability to adequately motivate ourselves is a universal concern, so there's no shortage of advice 'out there.' From Tim Ferris to James Clear to Mark Twain; everyone has got something to say about this. And most of it's great.

Except, much of it is of little help to someone suffering from anxiety or depression. Most of it assumes that you can naturally motivate yourself in some form - even if only a little bit to begin with.

Well, that's tricky if you're busy wrestling your demons.

We're not lazy, we're not shirking; mental illness targets many things, but it arrows in on your motivation.

Trying to describe this has left many people in my life scratching their heads; "I'm confused - why don't you just get a new job?" Or "I don't understand - why don't you just join a gym?"

Because my ability to motivate myself is non-existent. If it was present, I'd do all those things. Trust me, I would. I know exactly what I have to do to improve my life, and - on one level - I implicitly understand the straightforward nature of the tasks I have to complete.

But, when in the throes of depression, I'm drowning in quicksand. Paralyzed. Trapped.

I wish I wasn't. I do. But, when my 'dark passenger' comes calling, I am weighed down with a suffocating cloak of inertia. Simply eating and showering is tough; something like embarking on a new career or a new exercise regime is a towering mountain that I can't even begin to consider scaling.

If anyone can find the magic words that instantly recover my motivation at such times, I'm happy to hear them. As would be the 450 million worldwide who have clinical depression. Because you would've found a cure for the most common mental illness on Earth.

Well done, you.

However, considering that phrases such, "It's easy - come on," or "You need to get your life together" have - to date - cured exactly no one of depression, I would suggest that such words are chronically ineffective and that the way non-depressive people view motivation may need a little readjusting.

The truth is motivating yourself when low is a Herculean task. If it wasn't, no one would have depression as they could do the very things that negate the illness. And this is one of the flaws of the well-meaning advice about motivation; it's doesn't always factor in that our motivational tanks are already empty.

How do you motivate yourself when you have zero capacity to do so?

To date, I've only got one answer.

It's not scientifically rigorous, but it's helped me navigate those times when my desire to do… well, anything has upped and left the building.

Start somewhere. Anywhere.

I often waited until motivation to arrive as if it was a package delivered from Amazon. This meant sitting there, hoping for the Muse to descend in terms of writing. It took me years to realize that it doesn't work that way. Sometimes you need to give motivation a nudge.

And that nudge could be anything.

If I've got an article to write, but my depression is in full swing and my (admittedly limited) literary ability has vanished like a hibernating hedgehog hiding from the Winter, I'd force myself to write a shopping list. Or just find images online that I could use for the articles I've got planned. Or maybe I'll just write one post on Instagram or Facebook.

It's something. And that something starts the boulder rolling.

Does it always inspire me to then start work on larger projects? No, not always. Sometimes, if I'm very low, then that one solitary, trivial act of composition might be the very most I'm capable of. However, most days, a flicker of motivation has been sparked - if I can compose a shopping list, then chiselling out a few sentences for an article becomes possible. It doesn't matter if they're terrible - they're going to be edited anyway.

But, on such days, two sentences then become three, become four, become a paragraph.

When I'm low, I know that I'm never going to be as productive as when I'm 'okay.' However, I also appreciate that my life can't always just come to a complete standstill at such times; something, somewhere, has to move forward, even if it's only incrementally.

If I can only muster a few awful sentences on those bad days, I've still got something I can use later down the line. However, most times, I end up with a little more. Completing one minor task leads to completing another, and another, until the tasks are gradually increasing in size and importance.

Motivation can be forced.

Forcing myself to do something, anything, weakens the resistance my depression has erected. I can't always fully break through it, but, by starting somewhere, I can work within the boundaries it's established. I'm still able to do something.

Just start somewhere. That smattering of tiny, easy tasks might snowball into something much bigger. Even if it doesn't, you've still achieved something.

Start. Somewhere.

You never know where it might lead.

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