Overcoming Guilt From Lack Of Accomplishment

[electroBeam]

I have a spreadsheet, with all of the self actualization goals I have in life, and procedure of how to accomplish them, which Microsoft excel has been set up to make a gantt chart of the procedure.

I developed this system because I felt like a tumbleweed, stumbling lost through life, wasting it away.

Though now that I have a very specific set of goals and things to do, its very easy for me to see how many things I haven't accomplished, in the event that I procrastinate, or get tied up with something.

For a few weeks now I have been feeling very guilty, and kind of ashamed at myself for not accomplishing the things I have wanted to. I'm very aware that my life can end anytime, and will end eventually, and get really disheartened when I fail to accomplish what I have set out. I am very ambitious, and this doesn't help.

For example:

1.  I set out to accomplish at least learning about relationships, and putting myself out there for a girl I liked, which due to procrastination, failure to develop confidence in time, and me not being as efficient as I can be, I didn't accomplish it on the deadline

2. I meant to teach myself c++(programming a computer) before my degree in uni(for programming a computer) starts, to give myself a head start and better grades.

3. getting a part time job.

... and many more things. I have only meditated 4x this week instead of 7 as well.

I feel really bad for not accomplishing these things, and I can just see that I am pissing my life away from all of the procrastination I am doing. These tasks aren't hard either, I feel as though if I cant achieve these things, I'm going to have a very bleak future.

The guilt I feel though, is turning me pessimistic, and is really unmotivating me, and I can see that this is a contributing factor to the problem I am suffering from in the first place. How do I overcome the guilt I have developed?

Thankyou,

 

Edited February 20, 2016 by electroBeam

[Ida]

I also struggle with guilt. This video helped:

 

 

 

 

[Olsson]

Why wouldn't you want to feel guilt if you can't stick to your basic daily routines?

 

If you don't meditate every day it's good that you feel guilt. 

 

 

[Ida]

9 minutes ago, Olsson said:

it's good that you feel guilt

As the video I linked also explains: There is some deeper layer of guilt which blocks a person from doing what he know he should be doing.

[thortho]

I'm not sure how to overcome the guilt, and I'm not even sure that's the important thing, here. What's important is to keep going - "make it right", in a way. I mean, if you've wronged someone else and feel guilty about it, what do you do then? Apologise, repair the damage (when possible) and move on. Possibly see if you can use the guilt as a fuel for not doing that kind of thing again.

So you've not met some of your deadlines? That could mean that you were overly optimistic in setting those deadlines in the first place, so set yourself the same tasks with a more generous deadline. Or maybe you had too many goals you wanted to accomplish at the same time, so cross out all but one of those goals and save them for later, once you've achieved the first. Having too much on your to-do list can be paralysing - "Hmm, should I do this thing or that thing or maybe one of the others?" and then spend far too much of your day focusing on exactly which task to start with, or you get started on one thing but feel guilty that you're neglecting the others, so that i) it gets harder to focus and ii) you switch between tasks too frequently.

Or you've not met your goal of meditating every day? Maybe you've set the duration for your daily meditation too long - if you've never meditated before, then it can be a little daunting to suddenly start sitting for 10 minutes at a time (for instance). So, start with a shorter one - just a minute or two - there's simply no way you don't have time for that. Once that becomes a habit (give it a week or three), slowly increase the duration - one extra minute every two-four weeks or so. Even here, if you've seventeen other to-do things, that might become distracting from your 1-minute meditation ("What am I doing, just sitting here and doing nothing when there's so much stuff to get done?"); so again, trim your list. Find which is most important to you (or just choose one at random, I suppose) and stick with just that for, say, a month.

Small, managable steps are pretty much always the way to go. You won't run a marathon in four giant leaps, you finish by "just" putting one foot in front of the other, again and again. That's not always easy, but it gets even more difficult if, at the same time, you're writing a novel on your smartphone and having a conversation with your running buddy.

[Saarah]

3 hours ago, electroBeam said:

I have a spreadsheet, with all of the self actualization goals I have in life, and procedure of how to accomplish them, which Microsoft excel has been set up to make a gantt chart of the procedure.

I developed this system because I felt like a tumbleweed, stumbling lost through life, wasting it away.

Though now that I have a very specific set of goals and things to do, its very easy for me to see how many things I haven't accomplished, in the event that I procrastinate, or get tied up with something.

For a few weeks now I have been feeling very guilty, and kind of ashamed at myself for not accomplishing the things I have wanted to. I'm very aware that my life can end anytime, and will end eventually, and get really disheartened when I fail to accomplish what I have set out. I am very ambitious, and this doesn't help.

For example:

1.  I set out to accomplish at least learning about relationships, and putting myself out there for a girl I liked, which due to procrastination, failure to develop confidence in time, and me not being as efficient as I can be, I didn't accomplish it on the deadline

2. I meant to teach myself c++(programming a computer) before my degree in uni(for programming a computer) starts, to give myself a head start and better grades.

3. getting a part time job.

... and many more things. I have only meditated 4x this week instead of 7 as well.

I feel really bad for not accomplishing these things, and I can just see that I am pissing my life away from all of the procrastination I am doing. These tasks aren't hard either, I feel as though if I cant achieve these things, I'm going to have a very bleak future.

The guilt I feel though, is turning me pessimistic, and is really unmotivating me, and I can see that this is a contributing factor to the problem I am suffering from in the first place. How do I overcome the guilt I have developed?

Thankyou,

 

I think your problem is trying to do too much, instead just focus on one or two small goals related to personal development.

I for example have started two small things to focus on, the first is to meditate for at least 10 minutes a day, and the second is to start reading books related to personal development even if it's just a few pages a day.

I have tried and failed starting meditation in the past, but having these two select, very small and easy goals has meant I've been very successful so far in keeping with them, I think it's been about a week and a half only but Instead of feeling guilty I feel super optimistic that I can do this because it's so realistic

Also, as Alan Watts has said, there are no wrong feelings, it's ok to feel guilt, just try being more compassionate towards yourself. Every big achievement has come about as a result of forming small habits, so focus on developing these, and like I said start small so you can't go wrong, and if you slip up then just carry on again. I would recommend the zenhabits.org blog for helping you with developing habits and being more compassionate towards yourself, if you go to the bottom of the page that comes up, there's a link for all his archives.

Go get 'em! lol

[Henri]

@electroBeam See a mistake as a mistake, not as "my" or "his" mistake. "My" means guilt; "his" means anger.

[Rosie]

I truly believe that the most important thing you must learn that you do not do anything wrong.

New goals always take time. You may not have meditated 7 days a week but you did 4 times Which is great. Many people do not do as much as you do right now. You must let go the feelings of anger. You must first learn about your own feelings before you can learn about relationships in depth. You must love yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUmIWUO-oHqQIPFbwDfTjWA
Also Take baby steps. Do not expect yourself to do everything at once. Start to do 10 minutes of programming every day. When you start it will be only 10 minutes, but then it will become 20, 30,40 and so on. You are on the right journey you only need some self respect and love to achieve your goals

[Jesper]

Great that you have set clear goals for yourself.

Setting deadlines for yourself and then condemning yourself when you don't make your deadlines is a bad mechanism which will make you feel depressed and which will make you give up. It damages your self-esteem and self-confidence. I used to do this to myself. I'd promise myself that I would do something before 9:00 AM, for example, and then when it was 9:05 AM and I didn't do it I would feel bad about myself. After the same thing repeating a few times, I would quit because I had convinced myself that I couldn't do it anyway.

So, stop doing that. You can still set deadlines for yourself, but do not condemn yourself when you don't make the deadline. Instead, you have to acknowledge and accept the fact that you didn't make it, without putting a judgement about yourself on it. Just accept the fact as it is, and move on.

Also, learn to accept failure and see it as a learning experience instead of as something bad. (I'm working on this for myself too). When you fail, think about what you can learn from it and how you can do it better the next time.

Working on things and failing is much better than giving up. When you work on something and fail, then at least you are moving forward and learning something, which is infinitely better than standing still and not learning anything at all.
 

[Guest]

@electroBeam  The biggest cure to this guilt is to actually get your ass up and do the things. Accomplish something. You don't have to do all the things you wanna do all at once, but you can work on one at a time. Don't hate yourself when you cannot find a job right away, just keep on searching. Even when you are searching you are accomplishing something.

Just do the things that you gotta do. If you piss your life away by playing too mch World of Warcraft or getting wasted every day, then you probably deserve to have this guilt.

Get inspired, get motivated, face your guilt and then go out and DO IT. Yesterday you said tomorrow!

 

[Pallero]

You're trying too hard, too much and all at the same time. Your approach can make you frustrated, angry, upset and de-motivated. You are wrong: these things are hard. They are very hard. They might seem simple in theory, but in practice, they are very very hard. What makes you think they are easy? 'Cause somebody else has accomplished them? If so, you have to stop comparing yourself to other people - that's very important.

You are where you are. You are what you are. There's nothing you can do about where and what you are. You have to admit to yourself that you are a "very bleak failure". Except that of course you're not. You only call yourself that for some reason. Why? Whatever the reason, as long as you call yourself that, you will stay frustrated and de-motivated. I'm sure you have already realized that this is true.

Don't hate your current situation. Embrace it. Tell yourself that you are proud of where you are, find good things about your life as it is (write them down), and delete the spreadsheet. You might find it useful later, but right now, it only hurts you (obviously).

[MIARIVEL]

 @electroBeam 

I highly recommend reading "Eat that Frog" by Brian Tracey.

It is an excellent book to prioritize your tasks and getting things done.

[jenna]

I think encouraging "guilt" as a form of motivation is actually anti-productive. As someone who often experiences guilt if a day doesn't go according to plan, I miss one of the daily habits i'm trying to incorporate, etc. I tend not to want to continue when i feel guilt. So the biggest thing that's helped me, is during meditation, when my mind wanders, I've learned not to get upset with myself-- be gentle. And that's thing, be gentle with yourself, you're making a lot of changes and it takes a lot of time, and patience to change any aspect of your life. @Leo Gura has a great video where he talks about how your subconscious wants to reject the changes you're making, as you are verging away from the homeostatic state that has worked for you so far. 

So the biggest thing, is when you've forgotten to do something, or something hasn't gone how you planned, remember that it's part of the process, and now that you've realized "oh, i forgot to meditate today," don't give up on everything else you're working on because you feel guilty. 

 

hope my point made sense.