A check
You avoid the reading, feel better, then feel guilty by the evening. On this lesson, what did the guilt do?
It corrected the behaviour, so it was usefulIt attached itself to the task and made it harder to start next timeNothing, guilt is neutralIt proved you did not care enough
Yes
Guilt feels like the part of you that is trying to help, and on this mechanism it is fuel. The next time you think about that task, the guilt and the lost time come with it, so the task now feels worse than it did before you avoided it. That is the outer loop in the diagram, and it is why this gets harder rather than easier the longer it runs.