I believe it is quite important for people to do things that give them a sense of accomplishment every day. Activities that give you a sense of accomplishment are often referred to in psychology circles as “mastery” activities. These are activities that give you a sense that you are capable of doing something. They might also give you a sense of satisfaction, as you notice that a task is completed. Think of how you feel when you cross or check an item off on your to-do list. I would imagine that most of us feel at least a fleeting sense of satisfaction, if not a strong sense of relief and accomplishment – particularly when the task has been sitting on the to-do list for a long time or is momentous. As mentioned in previous blogs, mastery activities form part of the backbone of effective treatments for depression. People who are depressed often have negative thoughts about themselves, the world, and the future. Some of those negative thoughts about themselves are that they are worthless and incompetent. Scheduling and accomplishing mastery oriented tasks each day can help counter these negative thinking patterns. You can think of engaging in master activities as a type of experiment to test the validity of negative beliefs about your own competence. Mastery activities are not only helpful, however, for people who struggle with depression or other mental health problems. It can be helpful for anyone to have a balance of mastery and pleasure oriented activities each day. Indeed, although it might sound good, spending most of one’s time engaging solely in pleasurable activities can have some downsides. One downside is that these pleasurable activities can lose their strength over time. Perhaps the most important downside is that you might never get anything done, and the tasks that pileup will begin to generate stress. Of course, if your daily activities are imbalanced in favour of mastery, you may be marching down the road to being overworked, stressed, and burnt out. Try to strike an effective balance of mastery and pleasure activities each day. If you have negative thoughts about your own competence or find that your daily life is in balanced and lacking in mastery activities, consider incorporating mastery activities into your daily life. Schedule them, keep on top of them, and allow yourself to experience and enjoy any resulting sense of accomplishment or capability. – Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.