Guilt doesn't help. What should fill in for it? Remorse. Remorse is when you feel bad about what you did. Guilt is when you feel bad about who you are.

After all, this is how you learned how to walk. You didn't just jump up from your crib one day and waltz gracefully across the room. You stumbled and fell on your face and got up and tried again. At what age are you suddenly expected to know everything and never make any more mistakes? If you can love and respect yourself in failure, worlds of adventure and new experiences will open up before you, and your fears will vanish.

Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

Regret has a purpose. It's like the oil light on the dashboard of your life, telling you something needs to be fixed. So fix it. And feel better.

Reaching for the stars, perfectionists may end up clutching at air.

It can be helpful simply to make a written or mental list of the things you do each day. Then give yourself a mental credit for each of them, however small. This will help you focus on what you have done instead of what you haven't gotten around to do. It may sound simplistic, but it works.

That's one of the peculiar things about bad moods - we often fool ourselves and create misery by telling ourselves things that simply are not true.