If you genuinely believed I would award you two million dollars at the end of a year in which you went for a daily thirty-minute walk, would you choose to do this? How much money would it take to make you willing to do this walk every day for one full year, knowing full well that sometimes you would be disinclined to go for a walk?
In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I train you to see that you have choices and show you the attitudes you need to help you overcome obstacles to achieve your personal goals. People who have self-defeating emotions and behaviors that impede their goals will hold attitudes that undermine doing what it takes to achieve them. They may also not see that they can choose a philosophy that helps them to achieve their goals. In REBT, I refer to these self-defeating attitudes as unbearability attitudes. Compare the below two attitudes:
1. I want to lose weight. However, it is unbearable to give up my favorite high-calorie foods. I know there is plenty of good-tasting lower calorie foods I could choose to eat. I won’t make that choice. I am unable to bear the struggle to eat them.
2. I want to lose weight. It would be a struggle to give up my favorite high-calorie foods, but it would not be unbearable to do so. I know there is plenty of good-tasting lower calorie foods I could choose to eat. I will make that choice, and I can bear the struggle to eat them.
The first step in changing the targeted behavior, the foods one eats, is to see that one has a choice. Next, one has to see that the struggle of choosing to avoid eating certain foods is not unbearable. People need to know that they have a choice to bear the struggle and that the struggle is bearable. However, there is more to change than seeing that one can engage in a struggle and tolerate it. One must also be willing to bear that struggle, commit to doing so, and then maintain that willingness to accept the struggle in exchange for the longer-term pleasures and advantages goal achievement is likely to bring.
It is essential to acknowledge that one can bear a struggle is only half the battle to change self-defeating behavior. It is equally important to see the power of choice and develop the willingness to engage in the struggle and make a choice to engage in the struggle, which is the essence of commitment. I often tell my patients I will never encourage them to bear a struggle that is not worth it to them. If a struggle is not worth it, then it would not be sensible to be willing to engage in it. REBT is fundamentally a philosophy of maximizing pleasure and meaning in one’s life. If the satisfaction and meaning one will gain by engaging in the struggle is not worth it, all things considered, why then engage in the struggle? Therefore, you need to think precisely about your capacity to bear the effort required to achieve your goal. It is essential that you also see your choices and cultivate the willingness and commitment to engage in the struggle. It would be best to see you have a choice to engage in the struggle and bear discomfort or to choose not to make an effort and avoid immediate discomfort. If you do not see you have a choice and have the willingness and commitment to engage in that struggle, your acknowledgment that you can bear the struggle will do you little good in changing your behavior. In other words, even though you may be capable of bearing the effort and seeing that, you also must be willing to do what it takes to achieve your goal. You have to see you have a choice and make a particular choice. You have to be willing to pay the price your goals require. Without the willingness to pay the price, you will have intellectual insight into a capacity you possess to achieve a goal but will not have sufficient motivation to choose to act on that insight.
The obvious question is, what leads to willingness and commitment? It seems that one must reflect on the pleasures and gains of achieving the goal to be willing to do what it takes and make the commitment to do what it takes to achieve the goal. You could write down a list of what you will gain by achieving the goal. Years ago, I wrote a book with my friend Dr. Windy Dryden titled Overcoming Your Addictions. The first chapter of that book is Focus on What You Are Gaining, Not What You Are Giving Up. When a person gives up an addiction, they will suffer deprivation. The person derives pleasure, comfort, or satisfaction from their drug, a particular food, or other addictive behavior. A self-defeating behavior can also be addicting, and there will be deprivation which follows from the choice of not yielding to the urge.
Urges strike and are resistible, but we yield to them because we are unwilling to do what it takes to withstand the urge until it passes. Immediate cravings will inevitably pass, but the person struggling to resist the urge loses their will to resist the urge. Progress will occur only when the individual sees the many advantages of not yielding to the urge and maintains that willingness. Maintaining that willingness and commitment requires an ongoing awareness of the advantages of achieving the goal. Keeping your eye on the prize is essential for willingness and commitment. It may take a list that is ready at hand for when the task of bearing the struggle is upon you. I have encouraged people to hang a list of the advantages of doing what it takes to change on their refrigerator so that they see that list of benefits every day to maintain their willingness to resist self-defeating urges. As time goes on, you may even add to the list new advantages the attainment of the goal will bring that occur to you.
Summary: Acknowledging you have a choice and can bear the struggle to attain a goal is insufficient for change. You must also be willing to bear the struggle. You also need to view the struggle that the goal requires as well worth the price to be paid, and thereby committing to paying that price is essential. Of course, the final test lies in keeping your eye on the prize’s advantages. Keeping aware of the goal’s advantages once you achieve your goal will help you maintain your commitment to the effort. Keep at it. In my view, people will bear far more discomfort and short-term deprivation when they see and keep reminding themselves of the many advantages and pleasures that will come to them when they achieve their long-term goal. Be sure to work on seeing you have a choice and can bear discomfort and deprivation and then cultivate the willingness to use that capacity to achieve your long-term goal.