1. Feeling Guilty

Guilt is an emotion we often learn in childhood: “Eat all your food; there are people starving in India,” or, "I’ve been working my fingers to the bone to take care of you and all you do is complain?” As adults, we internalize these messages and feel like we’re never enough or can never do enough. Guilt can be helpful when it keeps you from intentionally harming others or violating deeply-held values. Excessive guilt, however, can cripple us and take the joy out of life—not letting you enjoy the fruits of your hard work. There are many types of guilt and research shows only one is good—guilt about something harmful that you did. If you lied to someone you care about, or acted in a selfish and hurtful way, then feeling guilt can motivate you to stop the hurtful behavior and make amends. This will likely improve your relationships and self-esteem. Most other types of guilt are counterproductive:

Guilt about not doing enough to help someone else, when you’ve already done a lot, or the other person is not taking responsibility;Guilt about having more money or better relationships than friends or family members;Guilt about thoughts that you don’t actually act on, like feeling jealous of a friend who just had a baby.article continues after advertisement

To combat unhelpful guilt, realize that your thoughts don’t hurt others—only your actions can do that. Learn from past mistakes and try to feel worthy of the gifts and good fortune life has given you.

2. Thinking You’re a Failure

Many of us have a sense of failure that colors our perception of ourselves and our achievements. If you look at your life through the lens of failure, you will fail to pay attention to or minimize your achievements. A mindset of failure also doesn’t take into account the difficult circumstances you may have faced, or how hard you tried. This mindset may have its roots in growing up with critical parents, not being as smart or athletic as siblings or close friends, or even having undiagnosed attention deficit disorder. It may be the result of disappointment in a key life area, like getting divorced, being single, having too much debt, or not getting a college degree or dream job. Once this mindset develops, you carry it with you into every new situation, believing that you lack what it takes to succeed.

Having a failure mindset can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading you to get in your own way. You may procrastinate and not get the work done on time, or become overly perfectionistic and focused on details, rather than the big picture. You may act in an insecure manner that doesn’t inspire the confidence of potential bosses or customers, or do a careless job because you just know your work isn’t good anyway. The first step in overcoming a mindset of failure is to realize it is there and that you don’t have to believe it. Each new opportunity is a fresh start and a chance to learn from previous mistakes and act differently.