What a great question.

I think the most helpful thing I have learned that helps me personally is an idea I have learned from Dr. Aaron Beck who is one of the fathers of Cognitive Therapy.

I cannot put the idea into words as well as Dr. Beck. There is a 3 minute 34 second YouTube video of Dr. Beck speaking about this on the Internet. It is called "Life Wisdom from Dr. Aaron Beck." If anyone is interested, I would urge them to watch this short little video. Of course I realize that what helps one person might not be helpful to someone else.

Since I tend to get stuck in a "could be better but isn't better" outlook, I have been greatly helped by learning from Dr. Beck how to shift my perspective to a "could be worse, but isn't worse" perspective. It isn't always easy but it always tends to help me when I am looking in a negative way at myself, others, events and things.

I find it to be the single most important thing I learned in dealing with my depression. Maybe in another post I can share what helps me the most with anxiety.