What Is The Key To Success When Faced With Depression Or Stress?

What Is The Key To Success When Faced With Depression Or Stress?

Is Depression and Anxiety a Problem or Challenge?

Thomas Watson (founder and president of IBM corporation) is quoted as saying “the ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer”.

When looking at entrepreneurs it is interesting to note that most of them did not have an easy ride to reach any stage of success. In fact people like R.H. Macy, had a number of failed retail ventures until he founded Macy’s which is one of the largest department store chains. Oprah Winfrey was abused in her childhood, then later in life, when she felt that she was finally achieving was then fired from her first television job. However Oprah was then able to build a media empire and Forbes estimates her wealth at 3 billion dollars. Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because his editor felt he “lacked imagination and no good ideas”. He then went on to make “Snow white and the seven dwarfs” which helped him build Disney and redefine children’s entertainment. J.K. Rowling was a single mum living off welfare when she began to write “Harry Potter” and then became in 2004 the first billionaire author.

All these people (plus numerous others) came from difficult situations, as Oprah Winfrey put it when she lost her first job “I was devastated, devastated!” When someone is in a hard circumstance it can cause depression, stress, anxiety and a host of other negative feelings. Those feelings can lead to a situation where the individual becomes more introverted and can have a hard time socialising. This type of individual might also find it hard to be productive and function within the household or at work. Oprah was able nevertheless to overcome her situation and come back to be a leading media figure.

Not everyone who gets fired will go on to make millions of dollars but many people are still able to continue is such situations and move on to greener pastures. On the other hand there are a significant percentage of individuals who will get caught in their depressive state and be unable to move on. The question is what is the difference between those who can progress, despite their difficulties and those who cannot?

Victor Frankl was one of the greatest psychiatrists in the last 150 years. In his bestselling book, “Man’s search for meaning” he describes how in the worst situations people are able to cope by finding meaning in their lives. This contrasted with the majority of psychological treatment until his time which emphasized that a lot of what people were disturbed about was meaningless.

The problem with emphasising the lack of meaning from the things which cause depression or anxiety etc is that does not really work. Even when an individual does understand that it is improper to feel bad about something, that knowledge will not necessarily take away their emotional turbulence. For example a person can know that they should not be upset about losing a job or a friend because there are many more jobs which they could get and people they could befriend. Nevertheless, when confronted by such situations a logical reply does not necessarily help and the individual will continue to feel depressed or anxious.

On the other hand when an individual finds meaning in their lives then they can focus on doing something which will either turn their issue into a meaningful challenge or move them into a perspective of life which makes their original issue totally insignificant. Who better to explain the importance of finding meaning in one’s life than two people who had hard times in their lives and now can describe how they were able to cope and grow:

Oprah Winfrey when speaking to a group of graduating students from Stanford University in 2008 talked about overcoming challenges. Speaking from a place of life experience she mentioned that although she enjoyed being rich that did not make her a successful person. What is success according to Oprah? “Having meaning, because meaning is what brings the real richness into your life.”

Another lesson Oprah gave to these graduates is that when things go wrong, she will sit down and ask the question “what is this here to teach me? As soon as I get the message, I then move on.” Oprah explained that the failures in her life caused her to not try and be like other personalities whom she had seen on television but to be more of herself.

J.K. Rowling when speaking to Harvard graduates in the same year of 2008 spoke about the “benefits of failure”. She pointed out that at one point (when she was still writing “Harry Potter”) she was a one parent mother who was jobless and poor. Rowling pointed out the benefit of such a situation and said that “this caused me to stop pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me (Harry Potter). Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”

Both Oprah Winfrey and J.K. Rowling found that in the lowest times in their lives they were able to cope by finding meaning and letting that meaning direct their lives. They did not get stuck by asking the question “how long is this problem going to last?” but instead “What should I do with this challenge in my life?”. People who will succeed in life will not view a difficulty as a problem which they cannot handle but instead a challenge which needs to be used to step higher.

This is a lesson for each of us! When times are hard, we need to find meaning in our lives to move on and not just remain depressed but for many this can be very hard. This is where therapy can help, as an outside objective therapist can help an individual or couple find meaning in a difficult situation and with their therapeutic tools moves the person or couple to a better situation.

The above article is a general structure for people but for specific problems a qualified therapist should be consulted.

Yitzchok Kaye BA, Pg. Dip., Msc is a trained, qualified Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, who also specializes amongst other therapies, in Victor Frankl’s Logo Therapy. He helps individuals and couples with their challenges and issues. He has been a practising therapist for a number of Counselling Organisations but now has his own private practice. He is available around the world via Skype. He can be contacted at Yitzkaye@gmail.com

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