Fighting the blues 

Many years ago (when I was 19) I was told by the doctor that I had depression, I felt like a ton of bricks had hit me, now I was labelled, I had unlimited excuses and as much sympathy as I wanted, in fact, I could have stopped working and collecting sick pay. Then with all that extra time, lack of money and self-hatred, I would have ended up free-falling until I hit rock bottom.

I am not a qualified doctor or psychiatrist, but I can talk about what I have learnt, read and seen with my own eyes with people that are depressed.

It’s not easy to get the motivation to get up and fight, but you have to think about those around us. When it comes down to our loved ones, we will do anything, but for ourselves, we are less generous with our time.

What do we need in our lives to be happy?
– promise
– hope
– momentum
– rewards
– progress

I don’t believe we can ever be satisfied for long, we are programmed to fix challenges, look for them and to keep evolving, without satisfaction or progress, I can’t be happy.

Here is what I would do if I was depressed and wanted to get out of it

• figure out what you want to be and where you want to be, write down your goals,  it doesn’t matter how small it is or how large, you need goals to work towards, I was depressed because I was in a dead-end job, I need to keep moving house, work, hitting new goals
• Make a plan to work towards those goals,  if you start the plan today, then you need to make another way to work towards them
• Work towards those goals daily, without fail
• Educate yourself constantly,  this one is very important for me because I need progress, learning is progress, even if my life is going slow
• Tidy your room – optimise your surroundings,  people are not efficient, their surroundings are, the less clutter the better
• Write down your jobs list, face them one at a time, do all the small jobs that have been bothering you for a long time, anything that has been nagging you daily
• Avoid negative people, people that are dragging you down or are doing the sort of behaviours you are trying to avoid.
• Take massive action,  get some control back, you cant just take small actions and expect big changes,  this may mean breaking up with someone, moving house, changing jobs…  you need to do it asap because it can’t get any worst than depression
• Make sure you don’t have any free time to think,  if I am left a lot for too long, I end up thinking negatively, suffer from anxiety because I am a forward thinker, knowing that we are all going to die, so is everyone around us is very depressing! But we are all in the same boat and we have to add as much value as we can, you can bury yourself in a book
• Take the blame for your surroundings and all your problems and sort them out, a lot of depressed people have convinced themselves that they are long term sufferers, then they identify themselves that way and they defend themselves aggressively if you try to argue that the depression is caused by their lack of effort. This victim mentality is what keeps people in place, I wouldn’t point out to a depressed person that it’s their fault because you are going to unleash a world of pain, they will defend their position very aggressively, they need to figure it out themselves and do their own thing….
• Don’t isolate yourselves from people, that makes things worst
• Try to get control back in your mind by giving up things that are easy to stop first
• Listen to some music, comedy when you have time,  laughing at comedy can build your laughter back up
• If you are suffering from self-hatred, you have to remember that everyone has problems, you just have to focus on the parts you like and read some books to get your confidence and self-esteem back on. 
• Master the art of deep work, it keeps your mind away from worries and anxieties.  You will get deep satisfaction and deep meaning in your life.

For me I haven’t been depressed for years, because I am constantly making progress, I am high on life when I am buying our company more bars, creating value for myself or other people.  But the minute I stop progressing (which can mean learning, moving house, investing, growing a business)  then depression hits me like a ton of bricks and I am up in action immediately, taking massive action before I get crushed.

I watch many youtube channels to motivate me, its like a daily medicine to push me away from being inactive because if my progress stops,  thats when I am in danger.

I am grateful that I have depression chasing me,  its the reason why I am as successful as I have managed to get, I won’t let it catch me. I don’t like talking about depression because I get a ton of guys messaging me saying they hope I feel good soon and they are depressed also!   I am not depressed, I havent been since I was 19-21 years old.

Here is a good book if you are stuck in a rut!