There is a prevalent misunderstanding among secular Jews, that in order to be “observant”, it’s ALL or NONE. When they learn that is not accurate, it opens the doors to the concept of climbing up the ladder of growth. Sometimes the rungs are easier to reach than others, but it’s which way you’re going on the ladder that counts in Hashems eyes.
The feeling called guilt that has been implanted in human nature, is healthy when used properly. The yetzer hara is a master when it comes to using guilt to convince us that we “just can’t move forward if we can’t do it completely”. Healthy guilt comes in well allocated doses which move us to work on changing for the better. Our challenge is to be in tune with ourselves to see whether the guilt will propel us in the right direction, and then act on it.