Having a successful career with depression, anxiety and imposter syndrome
<i>&quot;...if there is an email that you are avoiding and you realize that you are avoiding it, you&#x27;re not opening your inbox because it&#x27;s there, or taking any precautions to not look at it, or you know that you&#x27;re flinching every time you look at it, it is often a good idea to treat that as immediately your top priority in your whole life.&quot;</i><p><i>&quot;It seems stupid if you have some other urgent thing that is more important, but doing whatever it takes to overcome that ugh field today is going to take so much less effort than it will a week later when you feel a week more bad about it. And I think that creating these things that you&#x27;re avoiding is one of the best ways to be self-undermining and do things like really hurt yourself, including hurt yourself in the medium term, in ways that really matter.&quot;</i><p>Good advice for the mildly or maybe even moderately depressed, but for severely depressed people telling them to &quot;just do it&quot; is much like telling them to &quot;just get over it&quot;, like telling a person with an eating disorder just eat better, or telling an alcoholic not to drink.<p>Most of us realize our own behavior is harming us, but not engaging in such behavior is a lot easier said than done.