A very helpful way of thinking
about depression and stress is that they result from our failure
to live up to our own standards and goals. Psychotherapists hear
over and over again from depressed patients that they are never
satisfied with themselves. Often the patient is excessively perfectionistic;
sometimes the patient's goals are so far out of reach that he feels
too demoralized to even take the first step.
Having goals that are unrealistically
high can certainly contribute to depression. But many of us don't
even know what our goals are. Some people think they know exactly
what principles are important to them, and what their objectives
are in life. Others are mystified by this subject, believing that
they never think about their values and goals. Both can be very
wrong. We do live our lives by certain values and principles, and
we do have a sense of what we would like to accomplish for ourselves,
but these are largely unconscious. It takes some thought to make
ourselves aware of our core values and principles.
Most of us have done values
clarification exercises. Here's one I like: Imagine I drive up to
your house in a big trailer truck and unload a steel I-beam 120
feet long, about a foot wide, in your street. All the neighbors
come out to look. I put you at one end, me at the other, and I take
out a hundred dollar bill. I ask you to walk across the I-beam without
stepping off, in under two minutes; if you do, I'll give you the
hundred dollars.
Now let's load the I-beam back
on the truck and drive to lower Manhattan. I'll hoist the beam up
to the top of the World Trade Center. We anchor one end of the beam
on each tower. If you've been up there, you know it's very windy,
and it's usually misty. The beam is damp, and jiggles a little in
the wind. Now will you walk across for a hundred dollars? How about
$10,000? How about a million?
Now let's suppose I'm a different
sort of character. I'm on one tower, you're on the other, and I
have your two year old child. If you're not here in two minutes,
I'll drop her. Will you try it? Most people will cross the beam
for $100 if their life isn't in danger, but won't do it for a million
when it's really dangerous; on the other hand, most are willing
to risk it for the sake of their child.
This is an exercise in prioritizing
values. If you're making a deliberate effort to get your life in
harmony, this is the place to start. What will you cross the I-beam
for?
If the most important thing
in life to you is your family, why donĚt you spend more time with
them? The answer is that your activities aren't in synch with your
priorities. "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind," said Emerson.
But we feel best about ourselves when we feel that our everyday
activities are a step toward our long-range goals. If we want to
do what's truly important to us, we have to make a conscious and
deliberate effort to prioritize.
In my next segment I'll give
you a simple method to organize yourself so that you are spending
more time doing what is really important to you.
In our last segment we noted
that much of depression comes from not being able to establish priorities;
getting lost in the clutter of life and not being able to attend
to what's really important. I have a simple four step process to
help us get our actions in line with our priorities:
1. Identify your goals. Goals
are simply statements of how we want things to be. To be helpful,
goals should be specific, concrete, and measurable. I want to have
more fun — what's in the way right now? Mostly, right now it's
the nagging back pain that saps my energy. To deal with that, I'd
better exercise, diet, and invest in some medical care, even though
I'd rather not. To gain a long-term advantage, I have to put myself
through some short-term pain.
2. Synchronize. Do some of our
goals conflict with others? If my most important goal is to run
a lean, efficient charitable organization, but I also want to have
a big house and vacation in Europe every year, I'm setting myself
up for depression. In the long run, we doom ourselves if our goals
are in conflict. We are grown-ups and we have to face the fact that
we can't have it all. And it's necessary to really give up. If you
decide that a big house is not a primary goal for you, make a public
commitment to giving up that dream. Talk it over with your spouse
and friends. Have a ritual: light a fire in the backyard and burn
up all the magazines you've been saving with beautiful pictures
of mansions.
3. Partialize. Then start making
action plans about the goals you really do want to accomplish. What
are your professional goals for this year? Where would you like
to be in five years? At retirement? Do your goals for this year
take you closer to your long-range goals? If they don't, they should.
Maybe you have to focus a lot for the present on simple survival
strategies. But you will feel better if you can add to your daily
activities something that will help you get to your long-term goals.
When we feel that our everyday activities are in agreement with
our basic values and take us a step further toward who and where
we want to be, we add to our self-esteem and we have a little more
evidence that we can have an impact on our fate.
Make your action plans realistic
and concrete. Make them require some effort, but don't make them
impossible. Be somewhat flexible, and give yourself leeway for your
own state of mind. Just don't give up.
4. Review. Finally, review your
goals, and your progress toward them, regularly. Make sure that
you have given yourself permission to change your goals. For goals
that remain important, look at your action plans. Are there things
you should be doing differently? Build some time into your routine
when you can review your progress — at New Year's, on your
annual vacation, monthly when you pay the bills, on a regular date
with your spouse. Give yourself credit for doing what you've done,
make new plans for doing what could be done better, and let the
rest go.