Hey Doreen, I understand how you feel. I recently had depression too because I was jobless. I thought I was fine, just find another job. But in the night, I would cry uncontrollably. It’s pretty scary. I didn’t want to get up in the morning. All my passion is gone. I didn’t even have the motivation to find a job. The thing I need to do the most!

But lucky for me, I had been learning a lot about self improvement over the last six years after I had depression. I managed to overcome it and able to talk to my brother about it.

I documented what I do in my blog: http://www.nerdycreator.com/blog/feeling-depressed/

Hope it will help you too.

Regards,
Nerdy Creator

Hey lexy99, that’s great news! Good luck! 🙂

Hey Sandy,

It’s perfectly okay with what you are going through right now. Most people in their 20s don’t know what their life is about. And although it appears to you that they are doing great, most of them don’t know what their purpose in life is.

There are a few things which you can sort out the mess you are going through.

1) List them out in bullet points on a piece of paper. It’s much clearer and less overwhelming this way. So for your example, you can do something like this:

– lack of funding for your major
– impulsive shopping problem
– not going to school and working at a serving job
– not saving enough
– fix up the old house
– haven’t finished your degree
– stuck at mother’s house
– boyfriend wants to move out with you next year
– not sure if you are passionate in your major
– can’t complete things
– problems with procrastination, time management, discipline, anxiety, and self sabotage.

2) Ask yourself what is the most important thing you want out of life right now. Money, studies, career, relationship, freedom? Is leaving your mother that important right now?
Choose one area which you are going to improve and focus on making it better.

I’m not asking you to give up your relationship, studies or job. But the key thing about completing stuff is focus.

If you have several things to do in a day for e.g. do groceries shopping, pay your bills, eat lunch, watch a movie, you can’t possibly do everything at the same time. You can only be at one place at a certain point in time. So my advice would be presence and focus on doing one thing at the time. And after you complete something, move on to the next. Take it slow.

No matter how successful people are, most people want to achieve everything fast. I shared problem as you. You can read more about it here: http://www.fearlesspassion.com/blog/three-beauties-overlook-want-achieve-dreams-fast/

3) Read more self-help books. It helps in the long run. The issues you have mentioned – procrastination, time management, discipline, anxiety, and self sabotage, are not issues at all. A little tweak to your perception and mindset. You will find that everything changes.

All the best 🙂
Yong Kang Chan (aka Nerdy Creator)
Author of Fearless Passion: Find the Courage to Do What You Love

• This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by tinybuddha.

Hey Hopeful,

I would like to ask if you will be happy if you become a manager?

Sometimes, we want things which we think will make us happy, but they don’t.

From what I’ve read from your post, I think it’s very difficult to get yourself motivated to do something when you are not passionate about it.
Plus, you say you are not the ambitious type. If you force yourself to get the manager position, the more you are going to resist it.
And that will lead to doing stuff that divert your attention like the ones you mention above and perhaps smoking.

What I suggest is to find something you love to do outside your work and start exploring.
Find things which you really enjoy doing and be happy in the moment.
You may find some ideas for a career switch and slowly change your career path.
Even if you don’t make a career switch, I think you will find that your life becomes more meaningful just by doing the things you love.

I said this because I’m a strong believer in passion. But do try it, I think it will change certain aspect of your life.

For the smoking issue, I think sharing it will be a good idea. Keeping secrets definitely creates more of the guilty feelings.
You can find some resource online not just to learn how to quit but also learn and make friends with those who have quit smoking.
I think I know someone who has a business that helps other quit smoking or something. If you need help me to contact him, let me know.

Usually when we continue to do things that we don’t feel good comes from beliefs on ourselves e.g. we think we are “not good enough”. Every time, we don’t feel good about ourselves, we automatically do our bad habit like smoking. So if I were you, I will find some resources to improve my self-esteem.

You can try Morty Lefkov’s website: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/#

It helps me to improve my self-esteem tremendously.

Hope what I share helps you! 🙂
Nerdy Creator