I have decided to dedicate a post on Thursday to therapy, and offer you the many tips I have learned on the couch. They will be a good reminder for me, as well, of something small I can concentrate on. Many of them are published in my book, “The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit.”

How would you like to cut your mistakes in half?

Then get a mentor.

Not a role model or a professional adviser—although those can’t hurt either. What you want is a person who can, in the words of author J. R. Parrish, “act like a filter to help you avoid costly mistakes and guide you through the perilous waters of life.” Or, as spiritual author Henri Nouwen explains, “keep reminding you of where your deepest desire is being fulfilled … [because] you distrust your own knowledge.”

My mentor’s primary job is to remind me that I am loved for who I am. I need not accomplish any major feat, win a Pulitzer Prize, or be the most popular blogger on the Internet in order to be loved and accepted. All I have to do is to take a few deep breaths and be my neurotic self. So, as you can imagine—given all my insecurities–my mentor is a very busy man!