I am deeply depressed and have no strength to move on. Where can I find salvation?

How do people who create their own business and achieve success in it differ from everyone else? They simply cannot do otherwise - something in life forces them to take unusual and difficult steps for themselves. Very often this is caring for loved ones. How to find your goal that you want to move towards?

In 2014, I founded Elite Blog Academy (EBA) to help teach aspiring entrepreneurs, writers, speakers, crafters, and community leaders how to turn their dreams into successful, profitable online businesses.

In subsequent years, almost 10 thousand students from more than 60 countries completed their studies on this course.

I have to admit that my favorite thing about mentoring other entrepreneurs and online business owners is seeing the incredible transformation. A person takes an idea—often one that everyone else thinks is a little crazy—and turns it into something real and tangible, be it a product, a business, or a social movement.

Watching these impressive transformations from the front row, I am always amazed by one simple thing that is the same for all these people. They have a “why” bigger than themselves.

How to Find Your Why

I know what I'm talking about: when I started, my “why” was also what kept me going. My goal was to make enough money so that my husband, Chuck, could quit his job. But the real reason my goal was so important to me was because I knew Chuck was being killed by his job.

He was unhappy. And every day I watched Chuck return home even more depressed and broken than the day before. I knew he felt trapped. We had an agreement that one of us would stay home with our children. As an aerospace engineer, he earned much more than me, so the question of who exactly looked after the children was not initially raised.

It was this “why” that motivated me to learn everything I could about blogging and growing an online business. That's why I woke up at three in the morning, and sometimes earlier, every day for more than three years and worked while the children slept, and then acted as a mother all day until evening.

This “why” kept me going when it was hard. It was this “why” that made me step outside of my comfort zone to try things that scared me, like making videos, going on TV, attending conferences, and then even speaking at them. And it is this “why” that ultimately built my business.

When the road gets almost unbearable, it’s time to remember “why.” This may not make life easier, but it will definitely show that the torment is not in vain. And sometimes that's enough.

Find your “why” and everything else will fall into place.

What to do when you are mentally exhausted?

Moral support and positive emotions are as necessary a source of vitality as clean water, fresh air, quality food and healthy sleep. Moreover, the lack of positivity in life can kill the desire to act, even when you are completely healthy, and over time can also lead to illness. We all know that emotions and health are closely related, that all diseases are caused by nerves, so you need to feed yourself with positive energy.

Top 10 ways to overcome emotional fatigue:

1. Chat with pleasant people - family, friends, relatives. Call and find out how they are doing. Ideally, dedicate an evening or a day off to communication - go or invite them to a party, cinema, theater, nightclub.
2. Spend some time alone with yourself - just sit or lie down in silence. Or, conversely, listen to your favorite music. Or walk through the park (square, embankment) and admire nature, without rushing anywhere and throwing unnecessary thoughts out of your head.
3. Pay attention to your pets - pick them up, play with them, sit them on your lap. If you don’t have pets, you can go out into the yard, feed and pet a stray cat or a non-aggressive dog. By the way, the emotional impact from yard cats that are not spoiled by attention is often stronger than from domestic cats that are tired of daily attention.
4. Do a quick cleaning in one place - on your desk, in your bedside table, in your hallway. You can do it without fanaticism - just carefully fold what’s lying on the table or in the nightstand, put your shoes back in the hallway, shake out and wash the rug, and wipe off the dust from open surfaces. It will take 10-15 minutes, and the visible result will immediately lift your spirits.
5. Try to meditate and master any meditation technique - Zen meditation, mantra meditation, Vipassana meditation or any other. Even if nothing works right away, just trying to learn something new will give you fresh emotions that are so lacking in a state of moral exhaustion.
6. Think about what is good in your life and what you can be grateful for. Good things can always be found. If you are constantly overloaded with work, be glad that you have it and you are in demand; if you are unemployed, rejoice at having free time, the opportunity to sleep until 10-11 in the morning and spend time reading, walking and self-development.
7. Read a book, maybe the first one you come across. If the book turns out to be interesting, you will receive a charge of emotional vigor. If not, you will see with your own eyes how much interesting things there are in life compared to boring books.
8. Say “no” to something or someone unpleasant that is poisoning your life. Sometimes simply getting rid of unnecessary and intrusive obligations allows you to feel relief and a surge of vitality.
9. Go where it's fun and exciting. For example, a dance master class, a group vocal lesson, a concert where there is a fan zone with the opportunity to sing along with the performer, wave your phone with the backlight on, or dance. You can go to such places yourself if you don’t have enough emotional strength even for friendly communication with someone.
10. Ask to go on a business trip at work or to visit friends in a neighboring city. You can go for just one day, using an overnight train or bus, there and back, if you don’t like to spend the night in hotels. Any journey is a small life, and there are so many interesting things in life!

These are universal tips that are suitable for almost everyone. However, I would like to dwell separately on advice for our beautiful ladies. The weaker sex is more susceptible to emotions, including negative emotions. But our beautiful women have many more sources of vitality in their arsenal.

What makes us change our lives?

In our research on fear, my team and I have found that every single story of overcoming adversity or conquering fear contains an incentive to overcome that fear.
Some reason “why” that prompted a person to make a firm decision to take action and change himself and his life. This could be another person, an event, a tragedy, or simply a conscious choice. But there was always something there. We were intrigued by this discovery. The realization that every bold action is preceded by a specific stimulus prompted us to dig a little deeper to see if there was a way to categorize these stimuli. In the end, we realized that the entire set of incentives can be reduced to five categories:

• trauma, tragedy or major life event;
• extraneous reason;
• responsibility or support;
• inspiration or teaching;
• dissatisfaction with the status quo and a conscious choice to make changes.

Why does creating incentives matter when it comes to overcoming fear?

Not everyone has the willpower or drive to simply “decide” to overcome their fear, but we can be intentional about seeking inspiration, taking responsibility, and grasping for better opportunities. This is important evidence that we ourselves are able to control the creation of stimuli that motivate us to drive away fear.

• If you're trying to work up the courage to start your business, listening to an inspiring podcast every morning can help create incentive. This will spur you to action.
• If you're trying to lose weight, your incentive might be paying for one-on-one sessions with a trainer, seeing a nutritionist, or joining a weight loss marathon.
• If you are trying to get a promotion, ask your boss for the most difficult and responsible task, and your incentive will increase.

If the “why” seems overwhelming right now, focus on creating an environment that will motivate you to take decisive action.

How to live further if there is no strength and meaning

It is the loss of the meaning of life that deprives you of your main strengths, so instead of pumping yourself up with energy drinks, it is more logical to deal with your basic life-giving meanings. Such conditions arise from crisis and traumatic moments, when a person loses loved ones, faces serious illnesses, and is forced to radically change his life. Then the previous guidelines collapse, and new ones have not yet been formed, and it becomes completely unclear how to live, and there is really no strength, since exactly as much energy appears as is necessary to realize aspirations. Some can afford to travel to deal with a change in direction, understand where difficulties came from and set a new course, but not everyone can leave their everyday life for introspection of the inner world. Then the question arises of how to live further if there is no strength and money to provide such a retreat. Fortunately, it is continuity with your usual life that is the key to overcoming this condition.

Spiritually strong people perceive everything philosophically and as temporary categories, having internal meanings of something imperishable and without an end point - this could be self-development, improving the world, helping those in need. When the meaning is limited to some specific relationships, people, type of activity, then the likelihood of its loss is high, and the more specific and stronger the attachment, the greater the crisis awaits. While continuing to perform your usual actions, consider your life for the presence of such eternal meanings that have value even after your death, even after everything disappears and changes. During this time, you can automatically go to work and cook soup, while mentally noting to yourself whether it makes sense to paint your lips or feed the homeless, go to church or buy a dress - by analyzing such little things you can come across their relevance, despite the changes that have occurred. Following this, an understanding of energy will begin to increase for the performance of such actions that you yourself assess as important - this will be the new course of your life.

If the meaning of life was lost after a certain event, then this happened due to severe psychological trauma, which the nervous system was unable to cope with. Then it will fade away and become less of a concern, but the feeling of not being completely alive may remain, so it’s worth contacting a psychotherapist to work through the situation as quickly as possible - the older the injury, the more difficult the rehabilitation will be later. If there is no opportunity to use help, then try not to hold back your negative and uncomfortable emotions - cry while you cry, scold the world order while a cry breaks out, kick the walls of the institution where it was painful. Everything is fine, as long as these emotions do not remain inside you, because it will take all your strength to contain them.

How to make a big goal yours

Not long ago, I set a goal for myself to be in the best shape possible for my fortieth birthday. For eight years I was focused on growing my business and spent almost every waking hour in front of a computer screen. All this time I watched my weight creep up, and not entirely healthy eating helped it.

It's not that I wasn't aware of this problem before, I even tried to lose weight periodically. I have tried the soup diet, GM diet, fast metabolism diet, flat belly diet, fat flushing diet and many others. These weird diets usually resulted in rapid weight loss, which I then inevitably gained back. Other diets were too difficult for me, so I could only stick to them for a few days.

And I started telling myself that growing my business was my priority and I didn't have time right now to focus on losing weight, working out, or eating healthy. I desperately tried to convince myself that weight gain wasn't such a bad thing, and since I was quite tall, it probably wouldn't even be noticeable.

And yet I became more and more uncomfortable in my own body. I started avoiding mirrors and moving away from my husband, not wanting him to see or touch my body. Working from home, I stopped going outside. I said no to media opportunities and avoided videos and photographs. I stopped posting my photos on social networks.

I believed I would never be able to lose weight and stopped trying to lose weight.

But then something happened. I started digging within myself and spent five days reading, writing and reflecting on what was going on in my life and in my business and what I really wanted. Suddenly my eyes opened and I realized two important things.

First, my marriage was not thriving. I hid from everyone, including my husband, and as a result we stopped understanding each other.

Secondly, my business was not doing very well. Much of the success of the entire company was a direct result of my ability to communicate with people and be natural, and I no longer did that.

For the first time in my life, I realized that what I felt about my physical self was directly related to my career growth, to the much more important and much more motivating goal of having a happy marriage and a successful business. And once I can connect the goal of losing weight and getting in better shape with a higher goal, I can find the motivation to start doing quality work on myself.

Keep in mind that knowing my “why” and connecting to a higher purpose did not make the weight loss task any easier. I counted calories and exercised even when I didn't feel like it. To make sure I didn't give up, I had to hire a trainer and sign up for a meal delivery service, which made it easier to choose healthy meals.

And most of the time I was not happy at all. Because I hate exercise. And I really, really like chips. But the connection with this big goal, with success on the personal front and in business, supported me when it became difficult. She reminded me that the sacrifices I made were worth it and the suffering would pay off in the end.

Your own big goal may not be about you. Your motivation may come from a sense of responsibility or commitment to family, friends, or a cause in which you deeply believe.

What to do when you are physically exhausted?

If you feel like you don't have enough energy every day, you might just be tired. This possibility exists even if you eat normally, don’t lift weights and sleep 8 hours a day, because it’s not so much the quantity of sleep and food that matters, but their quality.

Having fulfilled the daily calorie requirement with the help of sweets, a person will feel more exhausted than if he eats a balanced diet. Going to sleep with the help of sleeping pills is less beneficial than sleep resulting from fatigue from physical activity. However, in the absence of physical strength, it does not come to physical activity and sports. It turns out to be a vicious circle. However, there is a way out of it!

Top 10 ways to quickly replenish your physical strength:

1. Eat a piece of meat and, in principle, add protein foods to your daily diet, unless there are contraindications for health reasons (for example, kidney disease).
2. Partially replace sugar and sweets with dried fruits (for example, raisins, dried apricots, dates).
3. Find an opportunity to eat fresh vegetables and/or fruits every day, at least apples and carrots.
4. Don't overeat at night, at least for 3-4 days in a row.
5. Drink more clean water and less tea and coffee, also for at least 3-4 days.
6. Sign up for a massage if there are no health restrictions (for example, fever, inflammation in the body or exacerbation of a chronic disease).
7. Sign up for a special massage if you have diagnosed health problems (see a chiropractor to straighten your spine, lymphatic drainage massage if lymph flow is impaired, etc.)
8. Buy a vitamin-mineral complex at the pharmacy. Ideally, first consult with your doctor which complex is best based on your health condition.
9. Take a walk before bed and/or do light exercise, perhaps yoga asanas or simple stretching.
10. Go to bed early, preferably immediately after a walk and exercise. Repeat these steps as often as possible.

All of the above sounds quite banal, but it is more than effective. We do not call for immediate and drastic lifestyle changes. We suggest testing some changes when you suddenly feel a decline in physical strength.

If something doesn't help you, cross it off the list. If it helps, but seems tiring to use on a regular basis, then you will have an emergency self-help technique in stock in case of physical fatigue next time. By the way, if you are exhausted both morally and physically, restoring vitality should begin with restoring physical fitness and physical energy.