🧠 Mindset Mechanics: Handling Guilt

I’ve sat down to start writing this in the depths of a feeling that I know dominates so many parents lives: 

Guilt. 

I’ve been blown away just how often I feel guilt - noticeably more so as a parent than before. This morning’s guilt is founded in the fact I just slept in the guest bedroom whilst my partner Nickayla took the brunt force of a night with our daughter who is currently up to her eyeballs in Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. 

Now even though we built a rational argument for why this made sense for us to do, I’m still left feeling like, quite honestly, a selfish piece of shit. The impact on how I’m feeling, my mental load, how I make decisions, and how I show up both as a parent and in my work, is very real.

I know I’m not alone. In a 2022 study, 46% of working parents said they feel guilty “every single day” about how they’re managing the balance between work and parenting - with 57% reported feeling like they were failing in both parenting and work roles.

In today’s issue, I want to help us better understand parental guilt, why it’s harmful to your performance at both home and work, and some thoughts on how to combat it. 

What is Guilt?

Guilt is defined as a feeling of having committed wrong or failed in an obligation. 

Often, guilt emerges from the gap between what is and what we think should be. Sometimes that "should" is self imposed. Sometimes it’s culturally inherited or absorbed from social media. Regardless of where it comes from, it weighs us down.

The guilt you’ve likely experienced as a parent can take many forms - but most common I believe are:

⏰ How we spend our time 

e.g. Not spending enough time with your kids / family

😡 When we show up poorly

e.g.  Quick to anger and snap at our kid when they have a tantrum

🌱 When we compare how we parent with other parents

e.g. Can’t afford family holidays like other parents

❤️ When we take time for self care or hobbies

e.g. taking an hour to go to the gym

🛠️ When we make decisions affecting our kids

e.g. Giving them screen time to get some peace

Even just writing this I feel the weight of it. It’s lingering throughout the day - sometimes derailing and distracting entirely, other times like an annoyingly bug flying around the ear occasionally. Although guilt may manifest on a spectrum of experiences, there is no doubt it’s impact. But what does the research tell us about that impact?

How does guilt affect performance?

🧠 Guilt steals mental bandwidth

Guilt doesn’t just weigh on your heart - it also weighs on your mind. A 2023 meta-analysis of 25 brain imaging studies found that guilt consistently activates areas of the brain responsible for decision making, emotional regulation, and attention control. These are the same regions you rely on to stay focused, manage competing demands, and think clearly under pressure.

In other words, guilt takes up neural real estate that you need to function and perform. When it goes unprocessed, it doesn’t just feel bad. It actively disrupts the executive functions that help you lead well at work and stay grounded at home.

🪫 Guilt drives unsustainable behaviour

Driven by guilt, many parents overcompensate at home by relaxing boundaries. At home, this might mean relaxing boundaries to soothe your own discomfort - like saying yes to letting the little one stay up past bedtime, or letting them take the biscuit over the piece of fruit as a snack. At work, it might show up as working longer hours, or never saying no to a request, in a attempt to prove you're still fully committed.

Research shows that these behaviours, intended to ease guilt, can actually increase parental stress and reduce effective parenting, leading to more social and emotional difficulties for children (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023). Ultimately, what feels like devotion can undermine both the parent’s and child’s long term resilience.

🙈 Guilt erodes confidence

Guilt rarely shows up solo - an often brings it’s best pal self doubt- which can quietly erode your confidence and clarity. Did I overreact? Am I prioritising the right things? Is my child okay? That loop of second guessing isn’t just emotionally exhausting, but it also actively disrupts your ability to lead with authority, whether you're managing a team or navigating bedtime.

A Journal of Behavioural and Experimental Economics study (2018) showed that chronic second-guessers actually make worse decisions than those who trust their judgment. Self doubt doesn't make you better - it just makes you slower, foggier, and less sure of yourself.

And when we stop trusting ourselves, we start outsourcing that trust - looking to likes, feedback, or comparisons to feel okay. The result is a loop of insecurity that drains energy, dulls your edge, and pulls you away from the very people and work that matter most.

Inspiration from Elite Performance

In a landmark 1987 study around Predicting Athletic Performance, researcher J.Taylor followed 84 elite collegiate athletes across six sports. He measured each athlete’s self confidence, cognitive anxiety (worry), and somatic anxiety (physical symptoms) shortly before a competition - and then watched how they got on.

Taylor found that self confidence was the strongest predictor of cognitive demand performance (tasks requiring decision making, focus, or mental agility). In plain terms: self confidence mentally centres us to perform more effectively than simply being free of anxiety or physical stress.

The notion that self confidence has the capacity to overpower unhelpful mental or emotional weight is a powerful idea - but how exactly do athletes build and use this, especially as they stand on the cusp of performance?

One tool seen used universally across sports, and by athletes at the top of their game like Cristiano Ronaldo, is Affirmations.

Affirmations are short, intentional statements you repeat to yourself to shift your mindset. They help interrupt negative self-talk, ground you in what matters, and refocus your attention on how you want to show up.

Self-affirmation theory (Claude Steele, 1988) suggests that affirmations help us maintain a sense of self-worth and identity when we face threats or challenges. Sound like woo-woo? Don’t be so quick to judge.

A 2013 study found that self affirmation boosts problem solving performance under stress. In the study, stressed participants who completed a short affirmation task performed 50% better on problem-solving tests compared to a control group (Creswell et al, 2013).

Affirmations as such have become a go-to tool in the world of elite sport - not as fluffy self talk, but as meaningful performance boosters. Videos of athletes engaged in affirmations and positive self talk have become more and more common in the social sphere - but this example from Jazmine Sawyers - as she prepared for her jump for which she became European Indoor Long Jump Champion - is a personal favourite.

Affirmations help athletes break the spiral of overthinking, reconnect to purpose, and return to the moment with confidence. As NCAA volleyball player Charlotte Cronister shared with Voice in Sport, “When there is more pressure and less room to make mistakes… the easiest thing to do is use affirmations.”

That’s probably one of the most incredible things about affirmations - when you know to use it, it’s such a simple, accessible but powerful intervention. That makes it prime fodder for translating into our world as parents…

Managing Parental Guilt with Affirmations

Guilt is inevitable - let’s not beat around the bush. But rather than thinking we can avoid it, or even try to suppress guilt, we can change our relationship to it. If we want to give the best of ourselves to our work, parenting, or anything else in our lives, managing this relationship can really be the difference.

If affirmations as a tool has found it’s footing in elite sports, I can’t see why this couldn’t help with parental guilt too, by dialling down the negative guilt talk, reinforcing a more positive message, uplifting with it self confidence, all whilst keeping your mental bandwidth open.

The trick here is not to con yourself into affirming something you don’t believe - it needs to feel real. So what sort of messages do we need for ourselves to reframe guilt?

• Guilt is a signal that something really matters to you - it doesn't mean you're failing, but it does mean you're paying attention!

• Guilt acts like a hidden energy leak that drains our ability to show up for what matters, without ever offering a return.

• Guilt keeps us rooted in the past by looping on what we should have done differently, rather than focussing on the future and solutions.

• Guilt for not being ‘perfect’ is unfounded - attachment science suggests striving for perfection can actually be harmful to our children.

So all that said, here is our very first protocol! Feel free to use this as inspiration - I encourage you to adapt it to suit your needs - especially if there are certain parts you feel resonate more deeply with your context. And if you want to write your own from scratch, this is a great in-depth guide.

Well that’s it for todays issue - if you made it to this part, congrats! I know it’s a long one. That’s actually something I’d love your feedback on. How was this issue? Was this too long? Did it feel like it was lacking anywhere? Anything that felt too much?

This is my first longer form research piece and I want to make sure I nail them when I do. So all of your feedback is invaluable.

Thanks again, and see you next week.

Carl

References

Wang, Z., et al. (2023). Can work-to-family conflict lead to preschool children’s social–emotional difficulties? Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1195994/

Gilead, M., et al. (2023). The Neural Basis of Guilt: A Meta-Analysis of Functional Imaging Studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10136704/

Liebert, R. M., & Morris, L. W. (1967). Cognitive and emotional components of test anxiety: A distinction and some initial data. Psychological Reports. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3572704/

Andersson, P., Edman, J., & Ekman, M. (2018). Going With Your Gut: The Inaccuracy of Forecast Revisions in a Football Score Prediction Game. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329131866_Going_With_Your_Gut_The_Inaccuracy_of_Forecast_Revisions_in_a_Football_Score_Prediction_Game

Voice in Sport. Creating and Practicing Affirmations. https://voiceinsport.com/post/mind/creating-and-practicing-affirmations

Bright Horizons, Modern Families Index 2022. https://solutions.brighthorizons.co.uk/resources/research/modern-families-index-2022

Steele, C. M. (1988). The Psychology of Self-Affirmation: Sustaining the Integrity of the Self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 261–302). Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065260108602294

Creswell, J. D., Dutcher, J. M., Klein, W. M., Harris, P. R., & Levine, J. M. (2013). Self-affirmation improves problem-solving under stress. PLOS ONE, 8(5), e62593. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0062593