Get It Done When You're Depressed Read Online Free

therapist so you can focus on more outwardly positive talk when you’re around friends, family, and colleagues.
    Here are some other thoughts to consider:
    • Talk positively about others and the task at hand, even if it feels impossible. Keep negative self-talk to yourself.
    • Ask questions even when you’re not feeling interested about anything. This helps you generate interest in things around you.
    • Ask yourself, Who am I thinking about right now? Am I only focused on how bad I feel?
    Remember: It’s terribly hard to think outwardly when you’re depressed—it can feel like having to sing when you have laryngitis. But you must do it.

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    Wait Until You Finish Your Work to Judge It
    Depression is a harsh judge. It tells you that you rarely do anything right. No matter what you write; who you call; what you create; or how you give a speech, clean your house, plan a party, or do anything that has a specific result, depression judges you harshly before you can even finish a project. And if you feel that your work isn’t up to par, you might quit the project in the middle—or not even start it at all.
    This is a natural response to the pressures the judgmental side of depression can put on you. Judging what you do is a quick way to either not start a project at all or stop in the middle to avoid the very unpleasant feelings that you’re going to do an inferior job.

Wait Until the End to Judge
    When you ignore the internal critic until the end of a project, you at least can complete some projects. You’ll probably want to quit many times over, but quitting would mean you’re giving in to the fake judge, not your real judge—you. When you’re depressed, it can even be hard to think of what you do well. But it’s essential that you remind yourself—constantly, if necessary—that you can wait and realistically decide how well you did a project when it’s complete.
    Learning to be an objective judge of your own work when you’re depressed may be one of the most difficult strategies in this book you take on. Depression is a very negative and unforgiving illness. It’s ruthless in how it makes you put yourself down for being inadequate when you want to complete projects. By taking over from depression and judging your work realistically, you can recover much of the control depression takes from your life.
    Have you had these thoughts while trying to get something done?
    • I’m not doing a very good job on this project.
    • This is going to turn out really terrible.
    • This work will be rejected.
    • Other people would do this much better than I can.
    • I can’t keep going with this.
    When you at least know these thoughts are often unreal, you can better ignore them and just keep going with your project.
James’s Story
    I taught English in Japan for a few years. I enjoyed the work and especially enjoyed creating ESL (English as a second language) curriculum, but I often struggled with the depression I’d had since I was a teenager. About one year into my stay, I was asked to train a large group of Japanese ESL teachers. At first I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I decided what the heck and wrote up a plan.
    When I got there, I was amazed to see more than 100 women teachers in the audience, all looking at me expectantly. Then the thoughts started: You aren’t prepared enough. It’s always like this, James. You think you can do something and then you take on too much and make a mess. You remember what it’s been like in the past. Nothing but mistakes. You’re sweating like a pig. It was at this point that I really started to sweat—just from these negative thoughts! I felt the dark cloud come over me in a wave. It was just a familiar despair that once again I was stopped from doing something I loved.
    But this time I kept going and started to teach. I worried throughout the presentation that no one was really listening and that they were bored, but I decided to focus on myself and what I was