today we're going to be talking about cleaning your room a concept made famous by jordan peterson
and why this seemingly simple concept is so important for overcoming depression
hi everyone in today's video we're going to be talking about how seemingly simple tasks can
be so important and foundational in overcoming symptoms of depression this concept has been
popularized by jordan peterson and i'll be talking about how and why it works but before i get into
that just a couple of disclaimers to go over i'm a registered psychologist in the province
of british columbia canada and this video is for informational purposes only it is not intended
as a substitute or replacement for advice from your doctor or mental health professional now
with those things out of the way let's start talking about cleaning your room
now uh by way of background if you're not aware fellow canadian psychologist jordan peterson has
risen to prominence over the past decade or so for some of his somewhat controversial political
and social views i'm not going to be getting into the details of the his political views on those
various topics but rather i want to focus on one of the rules in his book 12 rules for life and
the rule that i'm going to be talking about can be summarized as
clean your room now jordan peterson has spoken a lot about this idea of cleaning your room
in the context of pushing back on millennials who have expressed desires to make massive
political and economic changes in the world but who do not have their own lives in order
now again i'm not going to get into the broader political and social aspects of jordan peterson's
teachings but i do think it's an important concept for individuals who are suffering from depression
when a person is experiencing depression it can be so easy to focus on all of the bigger picture
things in their life the the things that are going wrong relationships that aren't going well things
like unfulfilling careers significant financial stresses housing problems dissatisfaction
with personal health and what often happens in depression is that the person begins to focus
on all of these bigger life problems and sees no apparent solutions which in turn fuels feelings
of hopelessness and helplessness and thereby makes the depression worse so this becomes this
self-fueling cycle of rumination about bigger life problems for which there are no immediate
solutions which then makes the person feel more down and depressed and the more depressed and down
a person feels the less capable they feel they are at addressing any of these larger life problems
and so it becomes really easy to just give up as it feels there's no solution and no way out
now when i'm working with my clients who are experiencing depression
one of the first things i get them to do is to write out a list of all of the problems and things
that they want to change in their life i get them to think about problems in various areas such as
family friends work school life lifestyle finances or any other aspects of their life
i encourage them to spend some time on this exercise thinking through all of the various
areas and identifying as many problems as they can using as much paper as necessary
you may be wondering this this seems like a bit of an odd exercise as as you would think that writing
down all of the problems in a person's life would only serve to make that person feel more depressed
but what i've actually found is that the exercise can be therapeutic in a couple
of ways the first is that it can help a person really identify and focus on the specific aspects
of their life that are not going well and specific problems or issues that need to be addressed
and the second benefit is that when a person's experiencing depression
it can often feel like their problems are infinite and go on forever
however by working on the problem list what my clients find is that eventually they run out of
problems to write down so even though they may feel like their problems go on forever
this isn't the case and at some point there are no more problems to write down
so what does this have to do with jordan peterson's concept of cleaning your room
well the idea is once my clients have their list of problems and things that they need to change
in their life we begin to look at okay where do we start where do we start making change and for
me i always encourage my clients to start with the low hanging fruit the problems that are this
seemingly the simplest and easiest to change this can be things as simple as cleaning your
room getting out of bed before 9am brushing your teeth every day combing your hair making sure
that you're getting dressed every morning washing the dishes in the sink those types of things
but what you might be wondering is how can these
small seemingly insignificant activities do anything to actually address depression or
change some of the real and significant problems that might be driving a person's depression
well the key is that all of these types of seemingly simple small insignificant activities
are actually not so insignificant rather these are foundational activities on which everything else
you do is based so for example if i'm unhappy with my relationships i'm not going to be able to do
anything to improve my friendships if i always decline invites to go out with friends because
i haven't gotten out of bed all day haven't showered and haven't gotten dressed
the point is doing these basic foundational activities like cleaning your room showering
brushing your teeth getting dressed paying bills washing dishes if you're not doing these things
then it's going to be impossible to tackle any of the other bigger problems in life it's impossible
to make changes in any of those other larger areas of life that you might want to improve
you see the thing is by focusing on these small seemingly insignificant tasks you set
yourself up to be able to take on those larger more challenging issues in life
i've talked in previous videos about how depression is fueled by heightened expectations
and failure to meet those expectations i've talked about why it's so important to give up
on those bigger goals and heightened expectations as the first step in overcoming depression
by starting out and focusing on these smaller goals these smaller issues what you're doing is
increasing the likelihood that you're going to be successful at the goals that you're setting
for yourself so while that may mean that all you're doing is brushing your teeth every day
well at least you're brushing your teeth every day instead of not brushing your teeth every day
by cleaning your room you're able to accomplish the task of organizing your living space and
feeling like you're not living in chaos these are all starting point goals but foundational
goals that are necessary to address any of the larger goals that you might have in your life
now the other important aspect of this is that sometimes people don't know what their larger
goals in life are a person may not know what they want to do for their career whether they should
continue in this challenging relationship that they're in where they should live who they should
marry those types of things it can be impossible to know what the answer is to those questions
but when i'm working with my clients with depression
there are some things that they do know that they want they want to be in healthier shape they
want to see their friends more often they want to be taking care of their personal hygiene and
appearance on a daily basis they want to wash the dishes that are piled up in the sink these are all
things that it it's readily apparent that these are all things that the person wants to accomplish
so those are the places we start and that's where we begin with goal setting and
that's why something as simple as cleaning your room is so important
years ago i was working with a client who was so severely depressed that the only goal
she could come up with for the week was to wipe down her kitchen table one time and so
that was what you could do we set that as a goal and she was able to accomplish it and although
it seemed like no big deal such a small thing to accomplish such an insignificant task it was
incredibly important for her and she saw it as something that she had succeeded in doing
as it had felt like she was constantly failing at everything in her life this was something that she
actually did right she actually accomplished and from that small humble seemingly insignificant
goal she was able to build off of it and set more small humble goals
and eventually as she built success upon success with these seemingly small and significant goals
her mood began to improve and she started seeing other things in her life that she wanted to
accomplish and address and she started setting seemingly more important goals which she was
able to accomplish and which made her feel even better and that's how she overcame her depression
so the thing is setting seemingly small goals like cleaning your room isn't in and of itself going to
be the antidote for depression but it is critical to help you get unstuck and to start the process
of overcoming and recovering from depression so while this concept of clean your room is
presented by jordan peterson is now tied in with all sorts of social and political implications
if we just focus on it from the perspective of psychology it's absolutely right
so i hope all of that makes sense i i would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about this so
please leave me some comments in the comments section down below if you've been enjoying my
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thank you for making it all the way to the end of this video and i will see you in the next one