Your Erroneous Zones

by Wayne W. Dyer

previously. Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it’s futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything.

You can sit there forever, lamenting about how bad you’ve been, feeling guilty until your death, and not one tiny slice of that guilt will do anything to rectify past behavior. It’s over! Your guilt is an attempt to change history, to wish that it weren’t so. But history is so and you can’t do anything about it.

Guilt is not a natural behavior. It is a learned emotional response that can only be used if the victim teaches the exploiter that he is vulnerable.

Guilt is often used in schools to make children learn certain things or behave in certain ways. And remember that even as an adult you are a product of those schools.

No amount of guilt, however large, will change past behavior.

If you are striving to lose weight and give in to counterproductive behavior, you can learn from it and work at being more effective in your present moment. But to feel guilty and full of self-reproach is a waste of time, for, if you feel that way for very long, you are likely to repeat the excess eating, as your own neurotic way out of your dilemma.

• Guilt is a superb way to win pity from others. No matter that the desire for the pity is a clear indication of low self-esteem. In this case you’d rather have others feel sorry for you, than like and respect yourself.

guilt. Guilt, like all self-nullifying emotions, is a choice, something that you exercise control over. If you don’t like it, and would prefer to make it go away so that you are entirely “guilt-free” here are some beginning strategies for wiping your guilt slate clean.

Begin to view the past as something that can never be changed, despite how you feel about it. It’s over! And any guilt that you choose will not make the past different. Emblazon this sentence on your consciousness. “My feeling guilty will not change the past, nor will it make me a better person.” This sort of thinking will help you to differentiate guilt

There is nothing to worry about! Absolutely nothing. You can spend the rest of your life, beginning right now, worrying about the future, and no amount of your worry will change a thing.

everyone spends an inordinate amount of present moments worrying about the future. And all of it is for naught. Not one moment of worry will make things any better. In fact, worry will very likely help you to be less effective in dealing with the present. Moreover, worry has nothing to do with

You can worry all you want about war, or the economy, or possible illness, but worry won’t bring peace or prosperity or health. As an individual you have little control over any of those things. Moreover the catastrophe you’re worrying about frequently turns out to be less horrible in reality than it was in your imagination.

Your worry keeps you from living. A worrier sits around and thinks about things, while a doer must be up and about. Worry is a clever device to keep you inactive, and clearly it is easier, if less rewarding, to worry, than to be an active, involved person.

Worry can bring ulcers, hypertension, cramps, tension headaches, backaches and the like. While these may not seem to be payoffs, they do result in considerable attention from others and justify much self-pity as well, and some people would rather be pitied than fulfilled.

Begin to view your present moments as times to live, rather than to obsess about the future.

When you catch yourself worrying, ask yourself, “What am I avoiding now by using up this moment with worry?” Then begin to attack whatever it is you’re avoiding. The best antidote to worry is action.

Begin to face the fears you possess with productive thought and behavior.

The present moment is the key to understanding your guilt and worry activities. Learn to live now and not waste your current moments in immobilizing thoughts about the past or future.

There is no other moment to live but now, and all of your futile guilt and worry are done in the elusive now.

If you believe in yourself fully, no activity is beyond your potential. The entire gamut of human experience is yours to enjoy, once you decide to venture into territory where you don’t have guarantees.

They were people, just like you, set apart only in that they were willing to traverse areas where others dared not tread. Albert Schweitzer, another Renaissance Man, once said, “Nothing human is alien to me.”

Opening yourself up to new experiences means surrendering the notion that it is better to tolerate something familiar than to work at changing it because change is fraught with uncertainty.

myth. You are a tower of strength. You are not going to collapse or fall apart if you encounter something new. In fact, you stand a much better chance of avoiding psychological collapse if you eliminate some of the routine and sameness in your life. Boredom is debilitating and psychologically unhealthy.

Once you lose interest in life you are potentially shatterable. You won’t choose that mythological nervous breakdown if you add a little spicy uncertainty to your life.

You may also believe that you must have a reason for doing something; otherwise what’s the point of doing it? Balderdash! You can do anything you want just because you want to, and for no other reason. You don’t need a reason for anything that you do. Looking for a reason for everything is the kind of thinking that keeps you from new and exciting experiences.

The rigid never grow. They tend to do things the same way they’ve always done them.

The pre-judgments themselves are a safety valve for avoiding murky or puzzling provinces and preventing growth. If

plan. Don’t let the plan become bigger than you.

Security means knowing what is going to happen. Security means no excitement, no risks, no challenge. Security means no growth and no growth means death. Besides, security is a myth. As long as you are a person on earth, and the system stays the same, you can never have security.

You can believe so much in you and your internal strength that things or others will be seen as mere pleasant but superfluous adjuncts to your life.

You may be surprised to hear this, but failure does not exist. Failure is simply someone else’s opinion of how a certain act should have been completed. Once you believe that no act must be performed in any specific other-directed way, then failing becomes impossible.

Not to succeed in a particular endeavor is not to fail as a person. It is simply not being successful with that particular trial at that particular present moment.

sidelines avoiding potentially pleasurable activities. Try changing “Do your best” to simply “Do.” Perfection means

immobility. If you have perfect standards for yourself, then you’ll never try anything and you won’t do much because perfect is not a concept that applies to human beings. God can be perfect, but you, as a person, need not apply such ridiculous standards to you and your behavior.

I have revised some folk wisdom lately; one of my edited proverbs is Nothing fails like success because you do not learn anything from it. The only thing we ever learn from is failure. Success only confirms our superstitions. Think of it. Without

to. Leaving familiar grounds can open up a whole exciting gastronomic world.

Being afraid to try a new activity because you can’t do it well. “I don’t think I’d be very good, I’ll just watch.”

But instead of making lists, why not begin to challenge why you want to live each day the same as the one before, with no possibilities for growth.

Whenever you find yourself avoiding the unknown, ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen to me?” You’ll probably see that the fears of the unknown are out of proportion to the reality of the consequences.

Remind yourself that the fear of failure is very often the fear of someone else’s disapproval or ridicule. If you let them have their own opinions, which have nothing to do with you, you can begin to evaluate your behavior in your own, rather than their terms. You’ll come to see your abilities not as better or worse, but as simply different from others.

Remember that the opposites of growth are sameness and death. Thus, you can resolve to live each day in a new way, being spontaneous and alive, or you can fear the unknown and remain the same—psychologically dead.

Don’t let your convictions keep you stagnant.

Deliberately fail at something. Are you really less of a person for losing a tennis game or painting a bad picture or are you still a worthwhile individual who just enjoyed some pleasant activity?

Your erroneous zone of fear of the unknown is waiting to be replaced by new exciting activities that will bring pleasure to your life. You don’t have to know where you’re going—as long as you’re on your way.

The internal locus of control person puts the responsibility for how he feels squarely on his own shoulders, and this person is indeed rare in our culture. When asked the same questions, he responds with internally oriented answers such as: “I tell myself the wrong things,” “I put too much emphasis on what others say,” “I worry about what someone else thinks,” “I’m not strong enough now to avoid being unhappy,” and “I don’t have the skills to keep me from being miserable.” Similarly, when the internally-put-together

You can never find self-fulfillment if you persist in permitting yourself to be controlled by external forces or persist in thinking that you are controlled by external forces.

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you.

Politicians, actors, athletes, rock-stars, your boss, therapist, teacher, spouse, or whoever, are just skillful at what they do—nothing more.

Be your own hero. When you get out of the blaming and hero worship behavior you’ll be moving over from the external to the internal side of the ledger. And on the internal side there are no universal shoulds, either for yourself or for others.

New thinking will be helpful on two counts—one, you’ll banish those senseless shoulds and become more internal, and two, you’ll find decision-making less troublesome without those erroneous right and wrong categories.