I’ve had depression for 15yrs, and here’s why it rarely wins.

I firmly believe in the old adage of “if you want something, get up off your arse and go get it”. And if my mood is low, then that adage just sings louder

I bet I’m far from alone in having a less than positive mindset at times. As a long term depression sufferer grey cloud days were far too common. For anyone in a slump pushing through such times can be tough. Even tougher if you’ve taken a few more hits than normal. But giving in to that sort of mood and mindset is not an option for me. If you’ve read my book you’ll know what happened when I did. If my mood slumps I refuse to allow negative self-talk to dictate my next course of action, or rather, inaction. Whether it’s pushing through a despondent mood and getting up off the couch, or pushing through a fear and asking someone for help with a challenge. I will always do something.

The mood we’re in dictates the state of our mindset. If we’re feeling stuck our mood will impact our mindset state. If we’re angry and frustrated our mood might be aggressive. The self-talk we have inside our mindset during those times will revolve entirely around our mood. Ergo the solution to pushing through is to change the self-talk, change our conversation, all by changing our mood.

Acceptance

Have you ever felt resigned to the fact that there’s nothing you could have done to prevent/change/foresee a certain chain of events from occurring around you or to you? How long did the resulting emotion stay with you? Were you angry for a while? Frustrated at not being in control? Saddened about what happened?

Fact: We can’t control everything, but nor are we controlled by everything around us. The way in which we react to our challenges will either limit or create our next opportunity.

I suggest accepting situations such as the above but doing so in a short time frame. The longer we refuse to accept what’s not in our control, the larger the amount of energy we’ll waste fighting that battle. This reduces our ability to keep pushing through. If we can accept things sooner, we can change our mood faster.

Reset The Bar

Do you, like me, hold your own standards and expectations far too high sometimes? Each time I catch myself out doing that, I lower the height of the bar. Make your goals and challenges achievable. Having targets that stretch you, or are outside your comfort zone is all well and good. But only if they’re realistic. Lower the bar even to the point of things being ridiculously easy and simple. Start pushing through, achieve once more, and once again you’ll begin to alter your mood and your mindset.

Balance

Each time my self-talk takes me off on a trip to bad-mood town, I make an effort to stop with the crap conversations and reset. Often I’ll say it aloud, stop! The state of our mindset courtesy of the mood we’re in affects everything around us. We all know what it’s like being around someone in a bad mood, the atmosphere, the tone, everything changes.

Balance isn’t about having all things equal, it’s about restoring what YOU say is your sense of normal. So do something in line with that. We need to get back to basics, and by that I mean what is the simplest thing we can do to have an impact on our situation? No overthinking, no deep and meaningful analysis, what can we do right here and now to change our mood?

Fight

Yes, pushing through challenges is hard. Yes, changing our mood and improving our mindset can be draining. But is giving up what we really want to do? By using our energy to focus on pushing through we’re moving ourselves one step further forward toward what we’re chasing. We’re now one step further away from where we don’t want to be. And isn’t that what we all want? We don’t want to be back there, giving up or giving in. We all want to be up ahead, in the future, in that place we said. And if we keep pushing through, we will.

Post originally Published Here

P.S Yours free, click here for an e-copy of my biography “Shift Your View”.

Simon Sharky Clark

Helping individuals and businesses create 
positive shifts in their mindset and their way of thinking.

E: simon@theshiftinitiator.com
W: http://theshiftinitiator.com/about