193. Depression vs Dissatisfaction
Sometimes life feels really hard.
You’re trying to keep up with everything, but part of you doesn’t care anymore.
You’re tired. More than that, you’re tired of the way life feels right now.
It’s challenging to get your motivation to perk up.
Even your fun time feels a little (or maybe a lot) lackluster.
You know that you need to snap out of it, but you’re not quite sure how.
Maybe you need some help.
But first, you need to figure out - is this dissatisfaction? Or is it something more serious, like depression?
These two things, while they have some overlap, are not the same. Figuring out which one you’re experiencing will help you decide which support and steps you need to take you through it.
And that’s exactly what I’m talking about on this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. How to tell whether you’re experiencing plain old dissatisfaction, which is a great thing to bring to coaching, or possibly something more intense, like depression, which is better addressed with a mental health practitioner like a therapist.
Want customized support creating your wildly delicious life? Let’s hop on a free consultation call.
I’ll help you understand the blockers you’re facing and how to handle them moving forward. And I’ll share how a three-month 1:1 coaching package could supercharge your progress as well as your satisfaction.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
The differences and similarities between depression and dissatisfaction.
Key components of depression and dissatisfaction to help you decide which you might be experiencing (and which kind of support you might like to seek).
The cases when coaching can be helpful for depression.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about dissatisfaction vs depression.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. I hope you're having a glorious week. It's been a little topsy-turvy over here the last few weeks, as some of you all know. I think I've mentioned Alex has been recovering from surgery in May, and there's just been a lot going on with that. It's a lot of hard work to support someone as they recover from surgery. And I've been doing a lot of it, and that has been fine in a lot of ways.
I've been really supported by some wonderful friends who have made me a lot of meals. And also, it was kind of just a lot. And I think it's important to talk about that because so much of the time on the podcast, what we're talking about is how to live your most wildly delicious life. And I want to be really clear with you all that that includes sometimes struggling and having a hard time and doing things that feel kind of not so fun, but that are aligned with your values. Like, it's really aligned with my values to care for my partner while she's recovering from surgery. And also, some of that work was not particularly fun to do.
There's always some adding fun that you can do, and also sometimes things are a bit of a slog, and that's okay too. That can be part of a wildly satisfying life. Because the thing about satisfaction is it's not a destination. It's a way of being. Satisfaction is not somewhere you get to. Satisfied AF, satisfied as fuck, is not somewhere you get to when you arrive and then everything is perfect and wonderful.
I think about it a little bit more like satisfaction is or like satisfied AF, that is like the stars that I'm navigating by. When we navigate by stars, which is an old fashioned way to navigate, like if you don't have a compass, you never arrive at the stars. The stars are in the sky. But you walk towards them and they direct and guide you, and they help you get to where you want to go, even if you never actually arrive at them. So I think that's a really important distinction. Our ideals, our values, they're not places we arrive at where our life then a 100% fits inside of them because life is long and complicated. We are human beings. It's just not how it works.
You can't walk to the stars. One day, humans probably will have the technology to fly to the stars, and then the metaphor will need to change. But for now, it's more that these are guiding principles, not where we're going to live and spend all of our time. And I think that relates to this week because I want to talk about dissatisfaction.
And you might be kind of surprised to learn that feelings of dissatisfaction are part of a satisfied AF life because, well, for a lot of reasons. But that's not all we're talking about this week. We're not just talking about dissatisfaction. We're also going to talk about things that are beyond satisfaction, which are things like depression, as the title says.
And we may also touch a little bit on despair, which is another one of those D words that's around that end of things. And if you can hear the construction, I apologize. They are ripping apart our street and doing something to it. I don't even know what they're doing. Maybe like laying a pipe below the street and then putting the street back. They've been working on it for a long time, and I try to record podcasts around it, but it can't always be helped. So thank you for your patience with my background noise. Okay.
So first things first, let's talk about depression versus dissatisfaction. So we live in a very fast paced, high intensity, high pressure world, a lot of us. Like if you're working in the corporate sector like I used to, that can be super intense. If you're an entrepreneur like I am now, that can also be super intense. And so a lot of people are grappling with feelings of dissatisfaction, and a lot of people are also grappling with depression.
And sometimes these experiences can overlap, but I think it's really crucial to understand the differences between them and to understand where coaching can be useful and where coaching is not the right tool and where a different tool might be more useful. A different tool like working with a therapist or some other kind of mental health practitioner. So let's define dissatisfaction first.
So first of all, dissatisfaction is a common human experience. Like all human beings experience dissatisfaction at some point or another. And it's kind of the sensation that something isn't quite right. Something's not living up to your standards. Something's not kind of hitting the spot. Like, I know y'all have heard me talk about when you're eating your meal and you're like, it needs a crunchy element. Right? There might be dissatisfaction with the textures of the meal because there's not the crunchy element. Even if some of the other things are going well in the meal, you can still feel dissatisfied.
It can manifest as feelings of frustration, discontent, a general sense of being unfulfilled, which I know a lot of y'all are familiar with. It can arise in various aspects of life, career, relationships, personal achievements, physical health, body image. It can show up basically anywhere. So we're going to talk about what I'm going to call the nature of dissatisfaction, and then we're going to talk about what I'm going to call like the symptoms of dissatisfaction.
So the nature of dissatisfaction is situational. So dissatisfaction is usually related to specific circumstances, a specific area of life, a specific thing that's happening. So it could be a conversation you have with your boss. It could be the way that chores are being divided up in your household. It could be the fact that you've been talking about writing your novels since you were 17 and the novel's not done yet, and you're 37 now. So that's like a situation.
Dissatisfaction is also temporary. So the feeling of dissatisfaction is going to fluctuate. It can improve. Sometimes it gets worse. But with dissatisfaction, there's the idea that if you address the thing you're dissatisfied about, that can solve the issue. If I'm dissatisfied with my salad and I go get a crunchy element and add it to the salad, my dissatisfaction may be gone, and then I may be very satisfied and content with my salad.
Or if you're dissatisfied because of a conversation you have with your boss, maybe you can have a follow-up conversation, clarify what was said, or hash out anything that's like not working for you, and then you can return to feeling satisfied in that relationship. If you change the chore agreement with your significant other, with your children, or whoever else lives with you, I support all kinds of household arrangements, whatever you want to do. If you talk to those people about the chore arrangement and come up with a different chore arrangement, that could alleviate the dissatisfaction. If you get the novel written, that could alleviate the dissatisfaction.
So to review, the nature of dissatisfaction, situational, temporary, and the third one, motivational. So dissatisfaction can serve as a catalyst to get you moving, to get you changing things. This is the thing that often brings people to coaching. It often brings people to set new goals, to pursue different paths, and to make changes in their life.
They're dissatisfied. They're looking around going like, okay, something's not working here, and I'm going to do something different because I want to feel satisfied again. Right? So that's the nature of dissatisfaction. Let's look at the symptoms of dissatisfaction. And by symptoms, I really just mean, like, what does it look like? How does it appear? How does it present?
So restlessness could be like kind of a boredom as desire for something new or different. Frustration, feeling stuck, feeling hindered, feeling like you're not where you want to be. Lack of fulfillment, where even if you've achieved goals or done things before, you're not feeling a sense of meaning, you're not feeling a sense of fulfillment, and you're like kind of feeling itchy for that. It can also be comparison.
Sometimes when people are dissatisfied, they will begin to compare themselves with others and feel inadequate. So you may have experienced that yourself. I know I have. So that's dissatisfaction. Now, to understand the comparison, let's take a minute and talk about depression.
Now, first of all, I do think it's important to say, like, I am a life and career coach. I am not a licensed mental health practitioner. So I'm telling you about depression like as a mental health person, I'm a lay person. So this is my understanding of it. It's possible a therapist or other mental health practitioner would have a deeper or more nuanced take. So take this for what it is.
But I think it will be helpful for the purposes of this podcast, which is really understanding like when am I dissatisfied? When does it maybe something a little more serious? And what kind of support should I be looking for? So depression is a clinical condition that goes beyond temporary feelings of dissatisfaction. It is a mental health issue and it significantly impacts the individual's ability to function in daily life and sometimes in long term life.
And from my understanding, depression is characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest in activities, and a range of physical and emotional symptoms. So to really get into the comparison, let's talk about it the same way we did, this satisfaction. We're going to talk about the nature and the symptoms slash the presentation. So nature of depression is chronic pervasive and it's a medical condition. Whereas the nature of dissatisfaction was situational, temporary, could potentially even be motivational.
So the nature of depression, chronic. Depression often involves sustained periods of low mood and disinterest that can last for weeks, months, years, I think potentially even decades. Whereas dissatisfaction is situational. Depression is pervasive, and it can affect many aspects of a person's life. It can affect their thoughts, their feelings, their behaviors. It can even affect their physical health.
It can obviously affect relationships, their job, all kinds of different things. So it tends to be like more spread out across the person's life versus dissatisfaction being more about like a specific situation or a specific instance of something. And again, this is a medical condition. So depression is recognized as a mental health issue that often requires professional treatment, such as therapy or medication.
And I want to be really clear here. I've probably referenced therapy a lot more times than medication. I don't have any judgments at all about medication. I encourage you to figure out what's going to work best for you if this is something that you're working with or experiencing. But I'm not a mental health practitioner, so I'm not here to say like, here are the medications you could take and here are the ups and downs of them. I am here to say, if you're experiencing depression, that is better suited to a different kind of professional than I am.
And I'm going through the differences between dissatisfaction and depression because I want to help you be able to understand, like, whatever it is that you're experiencing in your life that's not feeling delicious, and then figure out like who is the right person to help me with this thing.
So I'm going over this on this podcast so that you can understand, like looking at what's going on in your life or your experiences or in a specific area, you can understand like who would be an appropriate provider or professional to help me work through this and who would not be? When is coaching a great solution? And when is coaching maybe not the ideal solution? So that was the nature.
Now, let's talk about the symptoms or like how it would look if you were observing it. So to review, the symptoms of dissatisfaction were like that restlessness, boredom, frustration, lack of fulfillment, and maybe that sense of comparison. Whereas with depression, it's going to be more of that persistent sadness, a constant feeling of sadness or emptiness. It might be a loss of interest, like disinterest in activities that were once enjoyable.
There could be physical symptoms like changes in appetite, sleep disturbances, fatigue, even aches and pains without a clear physical cause. There could be cognitive symptoms, difficulty concentrating, remembering details, making decisions, feelings of worthlessness, excessive guilt, excessive feelings of helplessness, or hopelessness.
And I want to pause there because I do think guilt, hopelessness, helplessness, and worthiness struggles, those can also show up in dissatisfaction. So we didn't list those when we were talking about dissatisfaction, but I've been coaching for a long time. And for a lot of people, when you really dig into what's going on, there may be a like, well, if I were a good person, I do this. Or like, I feel guilty when I don't do that.
Let me get more specific with examples. It might be like, I don't feel worthy if I stop working at 5 and don't do all the work that's available, or I feel really guilty when I drop my kid off at childcare, or maybe like, I really want to get out of the IT industry and break into something else, but I feel really helpless about like being able to rewrite my background in a way that makes sense to talk to a different industry.
Or hopelessness could be like, I know some people have really satisfying careers, but, like, I've never enjoyed a job in my life, and I feel really hopeless about the idea that I could find work that feels really good. So some of that may show up in dissatisfaction as well. But what I want you to, like, think about here is it's like how extreme is it? If it's really extreme, that's probably going to put you more in the camp of potentially depression and speaking to a licensed mental health practitioner.
Whereas if it's once in a while or like, I really struggle with this, but like I'm functioning well and like I'm feeling the full range of feelings. I'm not only feeling down all the time, then that might put you more into the dissatisfaction camp.
Now, there's another thing we need to talk about here, which is sometimes with depression, it can also show up as thoughts of death or suicide. So that is important to say because if you have thoughts of death or suicide, that is definitely something that I would advise talking to a mental health practitioner. And I do want to go ahead and say right now, if that's something you're experiencing listening to this podcast, I love you so much, and I want to be here for you, and I want the podcast to be a resource for you.
And also, if you are actively experiencing thoughts of death or suicide, you need to talk to somebody who is set up for that. So depending on where you are in the world, there's lots of resources for this. In the United States, there's a phone number you can call, 1-800-273-TALK. There's www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org, which can help you get to a lifeline crisis chat.
But I do think it's important for me to understand the limits of coaching and to say like, coaching is not the right fit, if that's where you are. I want to be really clear that like, I know people who've experienced this. I have so much love in my heart for people who've experienced this. And when I say I'm not the right fit, it's not because I don't care and it's not because I don't want to help. It's because I am not appropriately equipped for that or trained for that. And I want you to be able to get the help and support you need from someone who is.
Now, we're going to get into the key differences a little bit more deeply between dissatisfaction and depression. But I do just want to take a moment here to say, some of my previous clients have been people who've experienced depression. And so the time when a coach could be useful is if someone has a coach and a therapist.
So I've had clients before where they have a therapist and then they can talk to the therapist about the therapy angles of these things, and then they can come to coaching and what coaching can do. I know what coaching has done for one of my clients in the past is helped them kind of decide what narrative and mindset they wanted to have about the fact that they were a person who had depression.
So I think it's important to say that because it's not that coaching tools have no usefulness towards this topic. Coaching tools definitely do have usefulness, but there's a big component of this topic that coaching tools are not equipped to address. And there's a lot of resources available that I, as a coach, don't even know about and couldn't even get into with a person.
It's kind of like even in therapy, different kind of therapists specialize, and only certain kinds of therapists can prescribe medications if medication was something someone wanted to pursue. So each professional is going to have their scope and their limits. And it's so helpful to know what those scope and limits are. And I feel like these are things that, you know, there's like a lot of memes online about depression and dissatisfaction, but it's not always something that people talk openly about with each other.
I want this podcast to be a resource if you've been curious about this, but if you've been too scared to talk to anybody about it or you've been too scared even to ask me to say like, hey, is this appropriate for coaching? Now you have this podcast to kind of help you understand what is appropriate for coaching. Like, where does coaching shine, and where does coaching help the most, and what things would coaching maybe not be the best suited for?
Now let's talk about some more key differences between dissatisfaction and depression to keep helping you understand and differentiate out what you might be experiencing. So as we mentioned in breaking down the nature of dissatisfaction and depression, duration and intensity are one of the factors.
So again, dissatisfaction, typically short term and situational, improving when underlying issues are addressed. Depression tends to be more long lasting and pervasive. I'm sure there is an exception to that, that people can have like a sudden and intense depression. But we're just going to talk about generally typically. And so typically long lasting and pervasive affecting many areas of life, and better suited to professional intervention.
Now let's talk about impact and daily functioning. As we said before, dissatisfaction can motivate individuals to make changes, seek improvement in specific areas of their lives, whereas depression can actually impair you, not just from making changes and seeking improvement, but also even just from daily functioning, making it difficult to even just go about your business as normal, get out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower, talk to your significant other, talk to your friends, and do all of whatever your various work activities are.
So one can kind of be like a pebble in your shoe that bothers you, but kind of motivates you to take a look at what's happening in the shoe and make changes and fix things. And the other one is kind of much more intense and difficult to get out from under.
Emotional range. Dissatisfaction tends to be something that's going to happen in an array of emotions that you're experiencing. You're still going to experience happiness and contentment, but there's going to be this thing that you're like, that thing's driving me nuts though. Whereas depression is characteristically more of a persistent low mood with little or no relief from the feelings of sadness, emptiness, etcetera. And then again, another differentiating factor is physical and cognitive symptoms.
So dissatisfaction is primarily like emotional and situational, even if it's like really, like you're like really bothered by it. Depression can tend to show up with more physical and cognitive symptoms, such as changes in sleep, appetite, concentration, stuff like that.
So like I said, if you're experiencing dissatisfaction, life and career coaching can be highly beneficial and very suited to dealing with that. I, as a coach over the past nearly 6 years, have helped tons of clients from tons of backgrounds and in tons of different situations work on their dissatisfaction by identifying what's going on, setting goals, developing strategies, making changes, and creating sustainable shifts in their life so that they are more delighted, more fulfilled, have more meaning, and things fit them better and work better for them.
I've done that with dozens of clients, and I could do that with you if that seems like something you would like support with. So coaching focuses on personal growth, motivation, actionable solutions, and that's really well set up for tackling dissatisfaction, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's in your job, whether it's, again, you want to write that novel, but you can't seem to get yourself to sit down to do it. That's all stuff that's very within the wheelhouse of coaching.
However, if you're experiencing symptoms of depression, like what we talked about in this episode, like I said before, coaching is not the best fit for that, unless the coaching is a cherry on the top of, you also have a mental health practitioner who's involved, but you want kind of the coaching as like an extra layer in helping you think about yourself in a loving way as a person experiencing depression. It can be good for that. But it's not an ideal fit as the main approach to handling clinical depression.
Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, helplines, some of these people are trained to diagnose and treat. Some of these people are trained to help you if you're in a moment of crisis. And it's a variety of things that are more available for you if you're experiencing depression or if you're experiencing thoughts of death or thoughts of self-harm.
And there's lots of different kinds of therapy. I know coaching has some similarities to certain kinds of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy. But there's a lot of different kinds of coaching too. I personally have done internal family systems and had a really good experience of that. I could have a whole different podcast on selecting a therapist. But I think basically just starting to look around and talk to people and tell people what's going on and see who has good recommendations is always a good place to start.
I know that if you are experiencing depression, that can be a time that it's really hard to get yourself together to go out there and look for a therapist, but therapists can be really, really lifesaving. And so if you are experiencing depression or, you know, another mental health issue that isn't suited for coaching, I really hope that you will pursue the support that you need that's going to allow you to get to a better place.
And like I said, if you want coaching as something that's in addition to therapy, I would be happy to talk to you about that and to see if coaching with me could be an additional good piece of support on top of a therapy relationship.
To review, distinguishing between dissatisfaction and depression is vital for addressing whichever one you're experiencing. While dissatisfaction is often situational and can serve as a motivator for positive change, depression is a serious mental health issue that will likely require professional treatment.
Coaching, like life and career coaching, like what I do, can effectively address dissatisfaction by helping you identify and achieve your goals, and work through obstacles, and make sustainable change, maybe where you've been struggling to make a change that actually sticks before, but it's not a substitute for the specialized care of a licensed mental health practitioner for the issues in life where that's what is needed and required.
So I hope that this podcast was really useful in helping you understand the difference and helping you better navigate whatever emotional experiences you're currently having and getting the appropriate support so that you too can have a satisfied AF life, whether that's something that you're working on together with me in coaching, or whether that's something you're working on with a therapist or other licensed mental health practitioner.
As always, the podcast is here to help you no matter what, whether you become my private client or whether you are my podcast client. And I hope you get everything you need to help you move through whatever difficult feelings you're having and to help you get your life set up so that it feels really, really delicious to you.
And if you think talking to me and having a consult or working with me might help you do that, just scoot on over to korilinn.com/learnmore, and you can get on my calendar and we can have a conversation about it. Right. That's what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
The Satisfied AF podcast is the place to learn how to create a life and career that’s wildly delicious. Want a steamier sex life? We’ve got you. Want a more satisfying career? We’ll cover that too. And you can be sure we’ll spend lots of time talking about how to build connected, fun relationships that can handle life’s ups and downs. No matter what goals you’re working on, this show will help you create a one of a kind life that is just right for you. Join me, life and career coach Kori Linn and each week I’ll give you lots of practical tips, tools, and proven strategies to help you create all the satisfaction your heart desires.
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Wednesday. I hope you're having a glorious week. It's been a little topsy-turvy over here the last few weeks, as some of you all know. I think I've mentioned Alex has been recovering from surgery in May, and there's just been a lot going on with that. It's a lot of hard work to support someone as they recover from surgery. And I've been doing a lot of it, and that has been fine in a lot of ways.
I've been really supported by some wonderful friends who have made me a lot of meals. And also, it was kind of just a lot. And I think it's important to talk about that because so much of the time on the podcast, what we're talking about is how to live your most wildly delicious life. And I want to be really clear with you all that that includes sometimes struggling and having a hard time and doing things that feel kind of not so fun, but that are aligned with your values. Like, it's really aligned with my values to care for my partner while she's recovering from surgery. And also, some of that work was not particularly fun to do.
There's always some adding fun that you can do, and also sometimes things are a bit of a slog, and that's okay too. That can be part of a wildly satisfying life. Because the thing about satisfaction is it's not a destination. It's a way of being. Satisfaction is not somewhere you get to. Satisfied AF, satisfied as fuck, is not somewhere you get to when you arrive and then everything is perfect and wonderful.
I think about it a little bit more like satisfaction is or like satisfied AF, that is like the stars that I'm navigating by. When we navigate by stars, which is an old fashioned way to navigate, like if you don't have a compass, you never arrive at the stars. The stars are in the sky. But you walk towards them and they direct and guide you, and they help you get to where you want to go, even if you never actually arrive at them. So I think that's a really important distinction. Our ideals, our values, they're not places we arrive at where our life then a 100% fits inside of them because life is long and complicated. We are human beings. It's just not how it works.
You can't walk to the stars. One day, humans probably will have the technology to fly to the stars, and then the metaphor will need to change. But for now, it's more that these are guiding principles, not where we're going to live and spend all of our time. And I think that relates to this week because I want to talk about dissatisfaction.
And you might be kind of surprised to learn that feelings of dissatisfaction are part of a satisfied AF life because, well, for a lot of reasons. But that's not all we're talking about this week. We're not just talking about dissatisfaction. We're also going to talk about things that are beyond satisfaction, which are things like depression, as the title says.
And we may also touch a little bit on despair, which is another one of those D words that's around that end of things. And if you can hear the construction, I apologize. They are ripping apart our street and doing something to it. I don't even know what they're doing. Maybe like laying a pipe below the street and then putting the street back. They've been working on it for a long time, and I try to record podcasts around it, but it can't always be helped. So thank you for your patience with my background noise. Okay.
So first things first, let's talk about depression versus dissatisfaction. So we live in a very fast paced, high intensity, high pressure world, a lot of us. Like if you're working in the corporate sector like I used to, that can be super intense. If you're an entrepreneur like I am now, that can also be super intense. And so a lot of people are grappling with feelings of dissatisfaction, and a lot of people are also grappling with depression.
And sometimes these experiences can overlap, but I think it's really crucial to understand the differences between them and to understand where coaching can be useful and where coaching is not the right tool and where a different tool might be more useful. A different tool like working with a therapist or some other kind of mental health practitioner. So let's define dissatisfaction first.
So first of all, dissatisfaction is a common human experience. Like all human beings experience dissatisfaction at some point or another. And it's kind of the sensation that something isn't quite right. Something's not living up to your standards. Something's not kind of hitting the spot. Like, I know y'all have heard me talk about when you're eating your meal and you're like, it needs a crunchy element. Right? There might be dissatisfaction with the textures of the meal because there's not the crunchy element. Even if some of the other things are going well in the meal, you can still feel dissatisfied.
It can manifest as feelings of frustration, discontent, a general sense of being unfulfilled, which I know a lot of y'all are familiar with. It can arise in various aspects of life, career, relationships, personal achievements, physical health, body image. It can show up basically anywhere. So we're going to talk about what I'm going to call the nature of dissatisfaction, and then we're going to talk about what I'm going to call like the symptoms of dissatisfaction.
So the nature of dissatisfaction is situational. So dissatisfaction is usually related to specific circumstances, a specific area of life, a specific thing that's happening. So it could be a conversation you have with your boss. It could be the way that chores are being divided up in your household. It could be the fact that you've been talking about writing your novels since you were 17 and the novel's not done yet, and you're 37 now. So that's like a situation.
Dissatisfaction is also temporary. So the feeling of dissatisfaction is going to fluctuate. It can improve. Sometimes it gets worse. But with dissatisfaction, there's the idea that if you address the thing you're dissatisfied about, that can solve the issue. If I'm dissatisfied with my salad and I go get a crunchy element and add it to the salad, my dissatisfaction may be gone, and then I may be very satisfied and content with my salad.
Or if you're dissatisfied because of a conversation you have with your boss, maybe you can have a follow-up conversation, clarify what was said, or hash out anything that's like not working for you, and then you can return to feeling satisfied in that relationship. If you change the chore agreement with your significant other, with your children, or whoever else lives with you, I support all kinds of household arrangements, whatever you want to do. If you talk to those people about the chore arrangement and come up with a different chore arrangement, that could alleviate the dissatisfaction. If you get the novel written, that could alleviate the dissatisfaction.
So to review, the nature of dissatisfaction, situational, temporary, and the third one, motivational. So dissatisfaction can serve as a catalyst to get you moving, to get you changing things. This is the thing that often brings people to coaching. It often brings people to set new goals, to pursue different paths, and to make changes in their life.
They're dissatisfied. They're looking around going like, okay, something's not working here, and I'm going to do something different because I want to feel satisfied again. Right? So that's the nature of dissatisfaction. Let's look at the symptoms of dissatisfaction. And by symptoms, I really just mean, like, what does it look like? How does it appear? How does it present?
So restlessness could be like kind of a boredom as desire for something new or different. Frustration, feeling stuck, feeling hindered, feeling like you're not where you want to be. Lack of fulfillment, where even if you've achieved goals or done things before, you're not feeling a sense of meaning, you're not feeling a sense of fulfillment, and you're like kind of feeling itchy for that. It can also be comparison.
Sometimes when people are dissatisfied, they will begin to compare themselves with others and feel inadequate. So you may have experienced that yourself. I know I have. So that's dissatisfaction. Now, to understand the comparison, let's take a minute and talk about depression.
Now, first of all, I do think it's important to say, like, I am a life and career coach. I am not a licensed mental health practitioner. So I'm telling you about depression like as a mental health person, I'm a lay person. So this is my understanding of it. It's possible a therapist or other mental health practitioner would have a deeper or more nuanced take. So take this for what it is.
But I think it will be helpful for the purposes of this podcast, which is really understanding like when am I dissatisfied? When does it maybe something a little more serious? And what kind of support should I be looking for? So depression is a clinical condition that goes beyond temporary feelings of dissatisfaction. It is a mental health issue and it significantly impacts the individual's ability to function in daily life and sometimes in long term life.
And from my understanding, depression is characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest in activities, and a range of physical and emotional symptoms. So to really get into the comparison, let's talk about it the same way we did, this satisfaction. We're going to talk about the nature and the symptoms slash the presentation. So nature of depression is chronic pervasive and it's a medical condition. Whereas the nature of dissatisfaction was situational, temporary, could potentially even be motivational.
So the nature of depression, chronic. Depression often involves sustained periods of low mood and disinterest that can last for weeks, months, years, I think potentially even decades. Whereas dissatisfaction is situational. Depression is pervasive, and it can affect many aspects of a person's life. It can affect their thoughts, their feelings, their behaviors. It can even affect their physical health.
It can obviously affect relationships, their job, all kinds of different things. So it tends to be like more spread out across the person's life versus dissatisfaction being more about like a specific situation or a specific instance of something. And again, this is a medical condition. So depression is recognized as a mental health issue that often requires professional treatment, such as therapy or medication.
And I want to be really clear here. I've probably referenced therapy a lot more times than medication. I don't have any judgments at all about medication. I encourage you to figure out what's going to work best for you if this is something that you're working with or experiencing. But I'm not a mental health practitioner, so I'm not here to say like, here are the medications you could take and here are the ups and downs of them. I am here to say, if you're experiencing depression, that is better suited to a different kind of professional than I am.
And I'm going through the differences between dissatisfaction and depression because I want to help you be able to understand, like, whatever it is that you're experiencing in your life that's not feeling delicious, and then figure out like who is the right person to help me with this thing.
So I'm going over this on this podcast so that you can understand, like looking at what's going on in your life or your experiences or in a specific area, you can understand like who would be an appropriate provider or professional to help me work through this and who would not be? When is coaching a great solution? And when is coaching maybe not the ideal solution? So that was the nature.
Now, let's talk about the symptoms or like how it would look if you were observing it. So to review, the symptoms of dissatisfaction were like that restlessness, boredom, frustration, lack of fulfillment, and maybe that sense of comparison. Whereas with depression, it's going to be more of that persistent sadness, a constant feeling of sadness or emptiness. It might be a loss of interest, like disinterest in activities that were once enjoyable.
There could be physical symptoms like changes in appetite, sleep disturbances, fatigue, even aches and pains without a clear physical cause. There could be cognitive symptoms, difficulty concentrating, remembering details, making decisions, feelings of worthlessness, excessive guilt, excessive feelings of helplessness, or hopelessness.
And I want to pause there because I do think guilt, hopelessness, helplessness, and worthiness struggles, those can also show up in dissatisfaction. So we didn't list those when we were talking about dissatisfaction, but I've been coaching for a long time. And for a lot of people, when you really dig into what's going on, there may be a like, well, if I were a good person, I do this. Or like, I feel guilty when I don't do that.
Let me get more specific with examples. It might be like, I don't feel worthy if I stop working at 5 and don't do all the work that's available, or I feel really guilty when I drop my kid off at childcare, or maybe like, I really want to get out of the IT industry and break into something else, but I feel really helpless about like being able to rewrite my background in a way that makes sense to talk to a different industry.
Or hopelessness could be like, I know some people have really satisfying careers, but, like, I've never enjoyed a job in my life, and I feel really hopeless about the idea that I could find work that feels really good. So some of that may show up in dissatisfaction as well. But what I want you to, like, think about here is it's like how extreme is it? If it's really extreme, that's probably going to put you more in the camp of potentially depression and speaking to a licensed mental health practitioner.
Whereas if it's once in a while or like, I really struggle with this, but like I'm functioning well and like I'm feeling the full range of feelings. I'm not only feeling down all the time, then that might put you more into the dissatisfaction camp.
Now, there's another thing we need to talk about here, which is sometimes with depression, it can also show up as thoughts of death or suicide. So that is important to say because if you have thoughts of death or suicide, that is definitely something that I would advise talking to a mental health practitioner. And I do want to go ahead and say right now, if that's something you're experiencing listening to this podcast, I love you so much, and I want to be here for you, and I want the podcast to be a resource for you.
And also, if you are actively experiencing thoughts of death or suicide, you need to talk to somebody who is set up for that. So depending on where you are in the world, there's lots of resources for this. In the United States, there's a phone number you can call, 1-800-273-TALK. There's www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org, which can help you get to a lifeline crisis chat.
But I do think it's important for me to understand the limits of coaching and to say like, coaching is not the right fit, if that's where you are. I want to be really clear that like, I know people who've experienced this. I have so much love in my heart for people who've experienced this. And when I say I'm not the right fit, it's not because I don't care and it's not because I don't want to help. It's because I am not appropriately equipped for that or trained for that. And I want you to be able to get the help and support you need from someone who is.
Now, we're going to get into the key differences a little bit more deeply between dissatisfaction and depression. But I do just want to take a moment here to say, some of my previous clients have been people who've experienced depression. And so the time when a coach could be useful is if someone has a coach and a therapist.
So I've had clients before where they have a therapist and then they can talk to the therapist about the therapy angles of these things, and then they can come to coaching and what coaching can do. I know what coaching has done for one of my clients in the past is helped them kind of decide what narrative and mindset they wanted to have about the fact that they were a person who had depression.
So I think it's important to say that because it's not that coaching tools have no usefulness towards this topic. Coaching tools definitely do have usefulness, but there's a big component of this topic that coaching tools are not equipped to address. And there's a lot of resources available that I, as a coach, don't even know about and couldn't even get into with a person.
It's kind of like even in therapy, different kind of therapists specialize, and only certain kinds of therapists can prescribe medications if medication was something someone wanted to pursue. So each professional is going to have their scope and their limits. And it's so helpful to know what those scope and limits are. And I feel like these are things that, you know, there's like a lot of memes online about depression and dissatisfaction, but it's not always something that people talk openly about with each other.
I want this podcast to be a resource if you've been curious about this, but if you've been too scared to talk to anybody about it or you've been too scared even to ask me to say like, hey, is this appropriate for coaching? Now you have this podcast to kind of help you understand what is appropriate for coaching. Like, where does coaching shine, and where does coaching help the most, and what things would coaching maybe not be the best suited for?
Now let's talk about some more key differences between dissatisfaction and depression to keep helping you understand and differentiate out what you might be experiencing. So as we mentioned in breaking down the nature of dissatisfaction and depression, duration and intensity are one of the factors.
So again, dissatisfaction, typically short term and situational, improving when underlying issues are addressed. Depression tends to be more long lasting and pervasive. I'm sure there is an exception to that, that people can have like a sudden and intense depression. But we're just going to talk about generally typically. And so typically long lasting and pervasive affecting many areas of life, and better suited to professional intervention.
Now let's talk about impact and daily functioning. As we said before, dissatisfaction can motivate individuals to make changes, seek improvement in specific areas of their lives, whereas depression can actually impair you, not just from making changes and seeking improvement, but also even just from daily functioning, making it difficult to even just go about your business as normal, get out of bed, brush your teeth, take a shower, talk to your significant other, talk to your friends, and do all of whatever your various work activities are.
So one can kind of be like a pebble in your shoe that bothers you, but kind of motivates you to take a look at what's happening in the shoe and make changes and fix things. And the other one is kind of much more intense and difficult to get out from under.
Emotional range. Dissatisfaction tends to be something that's going to happen in an array of emotions that you're experiencing. You're still going to experience happiness and contentment, but there's going to be this thing that you're like, that thing's driving me nuts though. Whereas depression is characteristically more of a persistent low mood with little or no relief from the feelings of sadness, emptiness, etcetera. And then again, another differentiating factor is physical and cognitive symptoms.
So dissatisfaction is primarily like emotional and situational, even if it's like really, like you're like really bothered by it. Depression can tend to show up with more physical and cognitive symptoms, such as changes in sleep, appetite, concentration, stuff like that.
So like I said, if you're experiencing dissatisfaction, life and career coaching can be highly beneficial and very suited to dealing with that. I, as a coach over the past nearly 6 years, have helped tons of clients from tons of backgrounds and in tons of different situations work on their dissatisfaction by identifying what's going on, setting goals, developing strategies, making changes, and creating sustainable shifts in their life so that they are more delighted, more fulfilled, have more meaning, and things fit them better and work better for them.
I've done that with dozens of clients, and I could do that with you if that seems like something you would like support with. So coaching focuses on personal growth, motivation, actionable solutions, and that's really well set up for tackling dissatisfaction, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's in your job, whether it's, again, you want to write that novel, but you can't seem to get yourself to sit down to do it. That's all stuff that's very within the wheelhouse of coaching.
However, if you're experiencing symptoms of depression, like what we talked about in this episode, like I said before, coaching is not the best fit for that, unless the coaching is a cherry on the top of, you also have a mental health practitioner who's involved, but you want kind of the coaching as like an extra layer in helping you think about yourself in a loving way as a person experiencing depression. It can be good for that. But it's not an ideal fit as the main approach to handling clinical depression.
Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, helplines, some of these people are trained to diagnose and treat. Some of these people are trained to help you if you're in a moment of crisis. And it's a variety of things that are more available for you if you're experiencing depression or if you're experiencing thoughts of death or thoughts of self-harm.
And there's lots of different kinds of therapy. I know coaching has some similarities to certain kinds of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy. But there's a lot of different kinds of coaching too. I personally have done internal family systems and had a really good experience of that. I could have a whole different podcast on selecting a therapist. But I think basically just starting to look around and talk to people and tell people what's going on and see who has good recommendations is always a good place to start.
I know that if you are experiencing depression, that can be a time that it's really hard to get yourself together to go out there and look for a therapist, but therapists can be really, really lifesaving. And so if you are experiencing depression or, you know, another mental health issue that isn't suited for coaching, I really hope that you will pursue the support that you need that's going to allow you to get to a better place.
And like I said, if you want coaching as something that's in addition to therapy, I would be happy to talk to you about that and to see if coaching with me could be an additional good piece of support on top of a therapy relationship.
To review, distinguishing between dissatisfaction and depression is vital for addressing whichever one you're experiencing. While dissatisfaction is often situational and can serve as a motivator for positive change, depression is a serious mental health issue that will likely require professional treatment.
Coaching, like life and career coaching, like what I do, can effectively address dissatisfaction by helping you identify and achieve your goals, and work through obstacles, and make sustainable change, maybe where you've been struggling to make a change that actually sticks before, but it's not a substitute for the specialized care of a licensed mental health practitioner for the issues in life where that's what is needed and required.
So I hope that this podcast was really useful in helping you understand the difference and helping you better navigate whatever emotional experiences you're currently having and getting the appropriate support so that you too can have a satisfied AF life, whether that's something that you're working on together with me in coaching, or whether that's something you're working on with a therapist or other licensed mental health practitioner.
As always, the podcast is here to help you no matter what, whether you become my private client or whether you are my podcast client. And I hope you get everything you need to help you move through whatever difficult feelings you're having and to help you get your life set up so that it feels really, really delicious to you.
And if you think talking to me and having a consult or working with me might help you do that, just scoot on over to korilinn.com/learnmore, and you can get on my calendar and we can have a conversation about it. Right. That's what I have for you this week. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time.
Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode of Satisfied AF. If you are ready to create a wildly delicious life and have way more fun than you ever thought possible, visit www.korilinn.com to see how I can help. See you next week.
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