Guilt is a sneaky emotion. Unlike anger, love, or sorrow, it has an ability to work behind the scenes without your really noticing. This means that you first need to identify that it’s actually there—that the undercurrent of emotion behind this flurry of negative, self-blaming thought is guilt. From there, the steps toward getting guilt out of your thought process and daily life are relatively simple.
step 1 ask the right questions
You first need to identify what’s going on. You’re feeling as if you did something wrong. But did you? Ask yourself:
1. Did I actually lie, deceive, or really let someone down?
Maybe you’re having some healthy guilt—which is really more like remorse. If so, and the situation is already in the past, do something about it, and then please, MOVE ON. Send a card, write an e-mail, make a call. Apologize, explain, whatever. Get it out of your mind and put it someplace else. Dwelling on it doesn’t help anyone, and most importantly, it takes up your precious time.
2. Am I guilty of guilt exaggeration?
Often a feeling of guilt is justified, but its response is blown out of proportion. Imagine someone doing to you what you’re feeling guilty about. Nine times out of ten, you’d probably say to yourself, “Yeah, that wasn’t the best thing they could have done, but it definitely wasn’t the worst either. I’ll get over it, so should they.”
3. Am I suffering from inappropriate guilt?
Most of the time, we reckon you are. Perhaps your boss is suggesting, even though you are supposed to be off on Friday, or at a lunch, or coming in late, that it would be helpful for you to cancel your plans and pitch in with someone else’s project. You’re feeling queasy and guilty. You start down that familiar path, hearing that well-worn internal dialogue with yourself that can spiral into nuttiness. “Oh, I should probably give up my day off or my lunch hour or my trip this weekend.” “I was wrong to ask for that day off, time at my son’s school, a late morning.” “My boss clearly believes I’m a slacker, lazy, or lack ambition.” “I’m letting down my boss, the team, my gender.” “Maybe I’ll lose my job, my respect, my identity.”
When you are starting to spin this way, learn to recognize it before you get dizzy with guilt. If you can identify the onslaught, you are already on your way to having a healthier emotional life. You can see what is inappropriate. The day, lunch hour, weekend off was yours. You will lose time if you give it up.
“I’m getting so much better at recognizing that part of this is my own thing,” says Linda Brooks, the New York lawyer. “The paranoia and self-talk that says ‘I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be available 24/7.’ ”
If you are having trouble sorting out whether the guilt is justified, then getting to the source of the “should” can help. Remember this: guilt is one of the basic human emotions that people in public or professional life will use to get you to do what they want. It’s a very sharp, very sophisticated emotional tool— one that bosses love to wield. The explanation is simple: in situations where you’re entitled to your break, to your vacation, to asking someone else to do a project, your boss knows that it’s unreasonable to take away that right. So that’s where he uses guilt to get what he needs.
Avoiding this kind of tactical guilt—which you might otherwise call “bosses’ guilt”—is a matter of breaking down any feeling of “should” into legitimate shoulds, where you actually failed to fulfill your obligations, and illegitimate shoulds, where you had no business fulfilling a request in the first place.
Lauren Tyler, a private equity banker at a top New York firm, who some days seems to be managing a small circus as she handles her high-level job, three children, and two stepchildren, says her industry thrives on an all-or-nothing competitive spirit. “You have to develop a thick skin. I know I’m doing my job well and I don’t have time to angst,” she says. “It’s not always easy, but I’ve learned to get things done in my business life and my personal life, without a lot of hand-wringing.”
So ask yourself: is the guilt you are feeling at a particular moment serving you and your own moral framework, or is it serving someone else and their wants and needs? If you come to the conclusion that you’re being guilted so someone else can gain, throw the guilt away.
step 2 write it all down
Early in the guilt-bashing, time-winning process, you will find that thinking is not enough. It will be hard to hear all of those familiar guilt thoughts and unfamiliar guilt-conquering thoughts and make sense of them. So get out that pen again.
1. List exactly what you believe you should feel badly about. Your personal classic guilt trips. All of them.
2. Stare at the list. Now, on another sheet of paper, make another list. A list of guilt busters. All the things you should feel good about. (That rarely occurs to any of us, of course.) Examples: "I asked for the day off.” "People are allowed to have days off in the company.” "I am only going to lunch, not to China.” "I’ve been doing a great job lately on the Brenner report.” "My boss is not going to dwell on this—he’s got a lot more to think about.” "Managers usually try to get all they can from people, and when they fail, they move on.” "It’s his job—it’s not personal. " "He does not think I’m a bad person.” "I’m going to seem more powerful for sticking to my plan.”
You see where we are going here. We’re reminding you how to keep things in perspective. Eventually we should be able to do it without the help of exercises. But sometimes we need to stop our minds from spinning, put it all on paper, and have a look. It really does help.