Freedom vs. Guilt : Part II

The Guilt Motivator:

The first question I have to ask to ask myself, is "am I doing this because I will feel guilty if I don't?" ... If the answer is yes, "what is this guilt stemming from?"

Often time the reason I feel guilty for something is because I feel the need to achieve. I don't know if this is the case for others but let me try to walk you through this in my mind. What happens for me is that I feel a need to achieve some standard for myself. When I am not achieving this, then I feel guilty.

Such as feeling the need to be a "good Christian" so that requires me to do certain things. When I don't do those things, such as reading my Bible or knowing certain Scripture, then I feel guilty because I'm not achieving the status of "good Christian" that I want to be.

Another example would be wanting to achieve the status of beauty that the world says. So when you aren't eating the perfect way or working out the right amount, you feel guilty that you aren't achieving this perfect standard. So you beat yourself up for not doing this, or not doing that, and you begin to feel extremely defeated.

The result of allowing guilt to be a primary motivator for me is constant failure, resulting from a belief that I need to be achieving certain standards. The reality is, my expectations of myself or unattainable, pretty much ALL the time.

So if the guilt motivator is defeating, then why do I allow myself to live under it? For me, it is because I like to believe that I can achieve perfection (even though I fall so very short).

Next blog... the freedom motivator...