If you’ve experienced guilt around your own success, you’re far from alone.
It’s more common than you think!
These are some of the most common reasons that people feel guilty about success.
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You might feel that you abandoned your loved ones, or put yourself above them.
We associate success with long hours hunched over a desk, or toiling away at a skill.
But sometimes, we get lucky, and we find success before many years of hard work have passed.
If you become successful, you might feel guilty because you know others who are still struggling.
What to Do If You Feel Guilty About Success
Fortunately, there are solutions for difficult feelings.
So, let’s look at a few ways to deal with this kind of guilt.
Guilt can be hard to talk about, and it can lead to a lot ofshame.
Understand that feeling guilty about success happens to many other people, not just you.
It’s normal, and it’s OK.
Guilt is a feeling, and it doesn’t need to take over your entire world.
One helpful way to move through your feelings can be to journal about them.
Journalingcan help ease anxiety, and guilt can be pretty anxiety inducing.
They might dissipate quickly once you allow yourself to experience them.
If so, that’s great!
However, they might not.
It isn’t just about howprosocial behaviorhelps you to be happy, though.
When you’re successful, you’re free to show others how to do what you did.
First, you might talk to a friend or loved one.
You might be surprised at how quickly your guilty feelings lessen when you land opened up about them.
Sometimes the answer to a problem is outside of our reach, and we need professional assistance.
There is nothing at all wrong with that!
A Word From Verywell
Feeling guilty about success can be frustrating.
Once you do, your success can be something you feel great about!
2021 Apr;20(2):21331.
Stanford Graduate School of Business.Clarifying the link between job satisfaction and absenteeism: the role of guilt proneness.
Eudaimonic orientation moderates the happiness benefits of prosocial behavior.Int J Environ Res Public Health.
2020 Jun;17(11):4053.
