How to Disarm Guilt Trippers

There are some people who are really good at tapping into the insecurities and guilt of those around them. Why do they do this? Because it gives them incredible power over you. In this post, a guilt tripper is someone who is able to make you feel guilty even though you haven’t done anything wrong. Or maybe they guilt you into thinking you’re a terrible person if you don’t agree with them or do what they want.

Here are three ways to reclaim your power:

Focus on you, not the guilt tripper:
From a practical perspective, the problem isn’t the guilt-tripper. The problem is, you don’t yet know how to stay out of their guilt trap. The only way to disarm a guilt tripper is to make yourself immune to their tactics. I’m not saying that is easy. I’m saying it’s necessary if you want to be in charge of your emotional life rather than letting a guilt tripper control you. If your significant other or co-worker uses guilt to manipulate you, that’s sad. However, that’s not the issue. The real issue is my next point:

You have to decide if you are guilty of anything:
Feeling guilty means you feel you have done something wrong. However, just because you feel that way doesn’t make it true. You have to learn how to evaluate someone’s accusation that you’ve done something wrong and then make a decision if you agree with them or not. What do you do if Bob says, “You know I’m not the most organized person on this team; you are. You should have reminded me our deadline for the project was today and I would have been ready.” You have to decide if Bob is right and whether or not you failed Bob.

Let go of your perfectionism:
You might not think you struggle with perfectionism. However, if you can be manipulated with guilt, it’s highly likely you are more perfectionistic than you think. Look at it this way: Do you struggle at times with being over-responsible—taking responsibility for something you’re not responsible for? If your mom accuses you of not caring for her because you don’t call once a week and accuses you of making  her depressed and distraught, do you buy into that? If you do, you’re being over-responsible—or in other words, perfectionistic.

You need to learn how to own your worth and develop strong self-esteem or you will be easy prey for those who blame you for something that you’re not guilty of. You have to learn what you’re responsible for and not responsible for and drop the perfectionism.

That way you can tell your boss, “I can’t do everything you’ve assigned to me and I’ll explain why. After that, can we talk through the priorities and you tell me what three things are the highest priority for this quarter?” If you struggle with perfectionism and expect unreasonable things for yourself, your boss can easily manipulate you: “Cindy, you’re the only person I can count on to do this. You’ve never failed me and I really need you to do whatever you have to do to pull this off.” If you can’t do that then you’ll fall prey to his guilt-tripping ways.

                                                                  - Alan Allard, Executive Coach