Your Erroneous Zones
Wayne Dyer
Dated, but it names the mental habits that run a lot of people without them noticing.
Wayne Dyer published this in 1976, and it was one of the first self help books to sell in huge numbers. His erroneous zones are the habits of thinking that work against you, and most of them are still around.
He goes through them one at a time. Guilt about the past and worry about the future, which he calls the two most useless emotions because neither one changes anything. Needing other people's approval before you feel allowed to act. Putting things off. Living by rules about what you should do instead of looking at what you actually want. Anger you haven't examined. Expecting life to be fair and getting upset every time it isn't.
His answer to most of them is the same. The present is the only moment you can act in, so stop spending it on a past you can't change or a future that hasn't happened. He's also sharp on procrastination, which he treats as a way of never having to be tested.
The writing shows its age. Some of the examples are very seventies, and parts of it sound like a pep talk. But the main idea holds up well: most of the feelings that hold people back are habits, not facts, and habits can be changed.
It's on the shelf as a kind of checklist. Every one of those zones is easy to spot in someone else and much harder to spot in yourself.
