This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, We Get Better: 48 Treatment Options for Chronic Depression.

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Treatment option 4: Setting long- and short-term goals

Researchers in the field of positive psychology have made their careers discussing what constitutes the good life. Many of their findings are included in this book, and high on the list: pursuing meaningful goals. Though mindfulness research has shown that living in the present moment is a helpful habit to cultivate, we also benefit emotionally from some amount of future planning. Achieving goals–both daily tasks as well as major milestones–gives us the satisfaction of accomplishment, which can increase a sense of self-worth and self-efficacy.

When considering what you would like to work towards both in the short- and long-term, it might be helpful to follow the SMART framework. Try to identify goals that are specific (clear and well-defined); measurable (how will you know when you’ve reached it?); achievable (can you really do this?); relevant (does it get you closer to a larger goal?); and time-bound (yes, there’s a deadline).

Of course, people with depression often struggle with motivation. There’s a catch-22 at work here: you know you’ll feel better after you get started on the day’s tasks, but you don’t always have the emotional bandwidth to do so. For many people, though, motivation isn’t motivation. Instead, motivation is a reward pathway that follows the initial action. That’s right: motivation is a misnomer. It’s the feeling of satisfaction that comes as a response to completing a task, not the excitement that spurs us to get started. Some people do experience a feeling of motivation before doing their first task of the day, but that might be because their brains have learned over time that task completion satisfaction follows action.

Habit is key here. The more often you complete tasks on your to-do lists, the more your mind will anticipate the pleasure of doing so. Jeff Haden writes about this concept in The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win, as does Daniel Pink in his popular book Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us.

When thinking through ways to get more done, consider the following strategies:

• Keep to-do lists and use them daily.
• Start the day with a relatively easy task–an initial win to get your motivational ignition lighted. Then move on to the more challenging stuff.
• When feeling unable to start a difficult task, tell yourself you’ll spend just a minute on it (even thirty seconds if that works better for you). Often, you’ll find that getting started is the hardest part and after the minute passes, you’ll want to keep going.
• Ask a friend to be physically present with you while you catch up on time-consuming needs like laundry, organizing and the like.
• Create time blocks of a predetermined length during which you focus on work alone: no texting, emailing, scrolling, etc.
• Get more sleep. (More on this later.)

In What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, author David Di Salvo has some additional advice. Get fast feedback, he says–even if you have to ask a friend to congratulate you on a task well done. When accomplishment and encouragement happen close together in time, your brain is more likely to associate the two. Also, keep in mind that some people are motivated more by achievement and some are motivated more by enjoyment. In one study, achievement-motivated people presented with a word puzzle that was described by researchers as “fun” didn’t do as well as when it was described as “a challenge;” for enjoyment-motivated individuals, the opposite was true. If you’re the fun-motivated type, find the fun in your to-dos. If you’re the achievement-motivated type, find the challenge. This framing might also be relevant if you decide to reward yourself for following through on an important goal. Would an enjoyable activity or indulgence work best? Or would it be more effective to track your progress in a phone app?

Though more focused on organizational change, the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath might be worth a read as well. Research- and evidence-based, it discusses ways to increase your emotional desire to change, how to build new habits by “shrinking the change” and “tweaking the environment,” and more.

Finally, if you suspect you might have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), consider seeing a specialist.

In your treatment plan notebook, on your phone or in another handy location, create a long-term to-do list, a short-term to-do list, and an ongoing to-do list. Add tasks that relate to your treatment plan as well as other work and life tasks that need to be done. Check the lists daily and get in the habit of accomplishing at least a few items every day. Update the lists frequently.

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