I have some serious issues lads and I think it's all spawning from crippling depression. I simply can not find a purpose in life. Furthermore, I am horribly lonely. I finally managed to have a girl stick around for a few months but she left me. For those few months I felt like a real person.
I simply can't get motivated enough to pull myself from the pit. Consume Product and clean living kings turned my life around years ago but I am falling back into the abyss.
How does one cure crippling depression? God's trials are killing me.
I'll try to explain using an example: most people don't want to clean their garage because it's messy, dirty and easy to ignore... However if you can act on the inspiration to spend just ten minutes to start cleaning it, you'll soon find the task wasn't as bad as you thought. You'll feel invested and slightly motivated by the time you're 1/3 completed and you'll feel good (more and more motivated) as the task is finally done. You might feel so pleased with your good works that you'll visit your garage just to see how nice it now looks.
Motivation only comes after inspiration / AFTER you start a task.
The trick is to act on your fleeting inspirations until your motivation starts to kick in.
The other aspect of this is training your brain to begin to look forward to the significant good feelings that come from completing tasks rather than feeling the fleeting comfort (relief) that comes from abandoning your responsibilities, not making an effort and "starting to behave responsibly tomorrow".
I find it also help if I write a list every evening before bed of the things I want to accomplish tomorrow... and being mindful about feeling good as I cross those tasks off my list.
Include even the small every-day things like emptying the dishwasher and doing a load of clothes washing in your list, so you'll feel good and get an accurate review of the day's achievements when you're writing tomorrow's to-do list.
This seems to help in the brain-training process.
It takes two months for new behavior to become a habit that you're brain considers "normal" and comfortable. Self improvement becomes almost effortless after this first two month period.
This is so important. Success breeds success so even a little effort in the right place can sow large dividends.
I've struggled with "crippling depression" since I was a kid and the one thing that always breaks it is forcing myself to do things that I don't want to do but that will make my situation indisputably better.