A good hunter looks powerful and agile, like a ferocious tiger which is able to catch and overpower its prey, however the tiger is merely good, a great hunter on the other hand looks harmless, like the tiny shrew which looks cute, especially while it seems to fumble hopelessly when bites its prey, seems that is, before its venom kills its prey from the inside. A good hunter is like pain, which hurts you, sometimes to the point of screaming, while a great hunter is like depression, which kills you from the inside.
Depression gives no warning, it even seems friendly, as it actually rids you of sadness, rage and pain, along with everything else. Like venom, it saps all the energy and will of its 'host', one such host was me, and i didn't completely hate the feeling of the venom feeding off me, after all if you are too drained to feel sad, is it not better than, well, feeling sad? This line of reasoning sounds very dumb, and you know what? It is.
Such a foe is difficult to deal with, you feel like doing nothing for days, and then you feel like doing everything at once..., take a guess on how it turned out for me, you'll probably get it right. I went through phases of not being productive followed by phases of being a failure, a perfect vicious circle, man i hate circles. This foe was seemingly impossible to defeat, which would mean that i did the impossible.
So how did i do it? as I stated I felt like doing nothing, so instead of focusing on the large amount of work done, or the endless amount of tasks in the to-do list, i did work which was basically... nothing, for example instead of finishing entire chapters, my goal was to only read the title of the chapter, and what about me finishing entire chapters without realizing late on?
Turns out, your brain does not like leaving things unfinished, so it compels you to complete what you started, and as you get things done, no matter how small, your brain releases little pleasure chemicals inside your brain called dopamine, this makes you want to start even more things, then you feel like completing them, then you get that sweet, sweet dopamine, and now... we have a virtuous circle, man I love circles.
So that just about sums it up, feeling overwhelmed? the challenges are too big? feel lost? The answer is to just start, make a small start, an easy start, might as well be nothing, but you know what? The results, are anything but.