Guilt Can Be Experienced Less Often

Regret, remorse, shame, and guilt will all come at some point, but the emotion I want to focus on is guilt. While all are similar, guilt is the one pinpointed as a valuable response, in that it shows a feeling of responsibility for the outcome in a situation. Guilt is when one has compromised his or her own standards of conduct and bears significant responsibility for that violation. You may be feeling guilt for the food you chose to eat at dinner last night, but there’s more to it than feeling bad about the food you choose to eat.

Guilt can weigh you down, forcing you to live in the past. But the question is not, “How do we get rid of guilt?”, because we need guilt to become better leaders. Trust me, you will unintentionally offend people and make wrong decisions along the way. But the better question here is, “How do we continue making brave decisions while creating more guilt-free outcomes?” The answer is to create better thought processes.

In your thought processes, you can almost always take more time evaluating the situation, because very rarely are there instances that need an immediate decision. You can also bring other people in to help you make the guilt-free decisions you are looking for. The people around you may see things from a different perspective than you do, and can help you make the best possible decision available. Another thing that you can do to make better decisions is to build a response bank, which holds the way you will react when certain situations happen in the future. This way you can be prepared to act and react, even if a scenario hasn’t presented itself yet. You can also make better decisions when you study what others have done before you in the same scenario, both good and bad, and act accordingly. And lastly, your thought processes become better when you know who you are and what you stand for. When this happens you allow your moral compass to guide you with decision making.

Your thought processes become better when you know who you are and what you stand for. Share on X

Some people choose to never take risks, to never be brave, in order to never experience guilt, but please know that living a life full of risk and taking chances is always better than to never live at all. When you’re stepping out and taking chances, guilt will come when the wrong decision is made, but to lessen these instances, you must become smarter with your decisions. This requires you to step back and evaluate each individual circumstance as needed, weighing the possible outcome of playing it safe against the outcome of making more brave attempts.

Living a life full of risk and taking chances is always better than to never live at all. Share on X