Three Ways To Stop Depression And Burn-Out
by Dr Martin Russell

Depression and burnout seem to be at all time highs. Maybe it is just awareness of the issues, but figures above 10% each year seem to now be thought of as common.

I'm a medical practitioner but I now work solely in counseling and psychological issues, and many of the people who have come to me have been complaining of feeling overwhelmed and burntout. Sometimes they are fully suicidal and depressed. More often they are simply feeling like they can't get motivated to get going in the morning, or they are overtaken by panic attacks or more subtle fears, or simply losing confidence in where they are at and what they are doing. From my practice I've concluded there are three key steps to avoiding such depression and burnout.

1. Have goals with a fixed end-point -- You need to turn a never-ending series of demands on your performance into a series of 400 meter races, or at the very least a marathon of known distance. If you run full pace all the time don't be surprised when you get worn out and have to stop exhausted. Usually this won't happen at the best possible time.

You can think of it as resting or taking a holiday, but it's better if it is a celebration milestone or part of a complete exit strategy. Whatever the label the need for planning for them is exactly the same. You need to be able so say when enough is enough. If your goal is to "make more money", then it will never be enough and you will risk striving for more when you have enough for your desired lifestyle already.

2. Have a bigger purpose in mind -- Life is not just about filling your days with whatever happens to get your attention, and yet there is so much around to choose from. With a bigger purpose you can select what is important for you, or it can be the other way around, what is important to you can be your bigger purpose.

Not that it has to be anything too over the top like ending all cancers, but it is important that it brings out your inner fire and sense of why it is that you would do the sometime challenging or difficult or boring tasks that you will sometimes need to in order to keep going for whatever you are after.

3. Create results that last beyond that day -- This is the most important one in my experience as a counselor. You need to build some cumulative benefits to the work you do each day. Otherwise every day is starting from scratch yet again, and it will just feel like you are "never getting anywhere", because you truly won't be. For example, if you are earning money but spending it or going deeper into debt just as fast, are you better off financially than if you just stayed in bed?

Sometimes it is merely about paying attention to the long-term benefit of what you are already creating. More commonly however you really need to change what you are doing so that on a daily basis you are producing money that you keep, sources of passive rather than active income, habits rather than bandaids, prevention rather than fire-fighting, relationships rather than one-off transactions. This way you can sleep knowing you have more to wake up to the next day.

So there are the 3 key ways you need to address to avoid depression and burnout. Ignoring any one of them can be enough to set you back, and if you are missing all three then you are probably reading this out of desperation. They are all solvable, and you can get started on each of them immediately.

Whether you simply want to change an irritating problem in your life, or you are wanting a complete transformation of your future, you can discover the hands-on skills you need at Dr Martin Russell's blog: http://www.DrMartinRussell.com