10 Tips to Motivate Yourself When You are Depressed

Trying to motivate yourself when you are feeling depressed is one of the hardest tasks.

Many people suffer from low energy, fatigue, and low motivation when they are experiencing depression.

Depression can look different for each individual. When you think of depression you may picture someone who is crying all the time, laying in bed, not eating, not showering, and isolating. While these are symptoms of depression, it does not always look this way for everyone. Other symptoms of depression can be irritability, not wanting to answer the phone, not wanting to walk your dog anymore, feeling numb or empty, and just wanting to sleep because you feel tired all the time. Many individuals can function and go to work, although once they are done with work, they just feel exhausted, and have low motivation.

Here are 10 tips to help you work on that low motivation when you are experiencing depression:

1.Take it one second at a time

Take a deep breath, and do that a few times. When you think too far into the future of all the things that need to be done, you may become overwhelmed and want to give up before you even start. Take a pause and remember you only need to focus on one moment at a time.

2. Take a shower and get dressed

Sometimes it’s hard to just start the day after that long rest throughout the night. Just start by getting into the routine of at least showering and getting dressed every morning. It’s pretty amazing what putting on clean clothes and getting dressed up for the day can do for your mood.

3. Set realistic goals

I know you want to do a million things at once, and complete them all in one day. Let’s be real here, it ain’t going to happen! Take the pressure off of yourself to do everything on your list in one day. Take one task and break it into small goals. That way it will not seem overwhelming. For example, if you need to declutter your closet, start by only going through your shirts. Next week, go through your pants, and so on. Make these goals achievable!

4. Get walking

Exercise is proven to decrease depression symptoms. This again can be a small goal to work on. You may want to start with a 10-minute walk outside or on a treadmill. Do this maybe every other day for a week, and then increase the time by 5 minutes or so. Eventually, you will get to a longer walk and start the habit going, and you will do it automatically.

5. Sleep hygiene

Make sure you are setting a schedule for sleep. Taking too many naps throughout the day can affect your sleep at night, and this causes a vicious cycle of interrupted sleep patterns. Make sure to set a bedtime for yourself (yes I know, we need bedtimes as an adult too). Turn your phone on do not disturb, and turn off all electronics. I typically put a sound machine on with rain sounds to help me sleep, along with doing some deep breathing exercises, give it a shot!

6. Spend time with a friend

I know the easy thing to do is stay under the warm blanket and go back to sleep for the day. Although, hibernating is only going to increase your depression and keep that motivation low. Call a friend to spend time with, and maybe you are only out for 1 hour, but it’s something right? If you are feeling even more daring, maybe ask a friend to check in on you once a week to get you out of the house, especially if you know yourself well enough that you will not keep yourself accountable to this.

7. Take time for yourself

I know this contradicts what I just said, but it’s also important to balance out socializing and having alone time as well. Take time to read that book that you keep saying you will get to, get your nails or hair done. Take a bath and listen to calming music, really take a moment to take care of yourself.

8. Acknowledge what you do well

It’s really easy to focus on all the things we are NOT doing and ignore the things we ARE doing well. At the end of each day, identify something you did throughout the day that was different or good that you did for yourself. It might be small, but maybe the goal you met for that day is you showered and got dressed, that’s okay! Training your mind to focus on what you do well will help with your motivation.

9. Ask for help from others

The self-motivation can be difficult in the beginning, but believe me, I have been there! Sometimes it’s okay to bring in the reinforcements, call a friend, a family member, or a loved one to check in and encourage you to do that goal you have set for yourself.

10. Do what you need to do

This is not going to be an easy task, getting out of depression and motivating yourself takes work. I know you are wanting that easy solution, but we have to face the fact that you have to push yourself a little more to get out of the darkness. Reach out to me if you would like some help and together we can navigate through Depression Therapy. Take the step, even if it is small. You got this!