All people have goals, purposes, and values. Pursuing these things produces a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and personal meaning. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is unique in its emphasis on rating the progress one makes towards these personal goals, purposes, and values while encouraging the elimination of the rating of the self or the person. REBT promotes the development of unconditional self-acceptance instead of conditional self-acceptance. Conditional self-acceptance is also known as self-esteem. It is helpful to see that unconditional self-acceptance is practical and philosophically sound.
For those with conditional self-acceptance, failure leads to emotional disturbance. From a practical standpoint, humans will never achieve all their goals. We will error. Alternatively, no matter how great the achievement, sooner or later, another human will outperform our most exemplary efforts. Regardless of how gifted one is, we will stumble, or someone else will do better and take the top position. If we attempt to measure our personal worth based on goal achievement or our ranking, we will feel emotional upset in the form of depression or shame when we fail at our goal or purpose or when someone does better than we do. We also will be anxious before we set out to perform because our ego is on the line. We may fail, and we will define ourselves as a failure if we do. The self-esteem that goes up with achievement goes plummeting down with failure.
If we were to accept ourselves unconditionally, our ego would not be on the line as we pursue our personally valued goals and purposes. Failure would be appropriately sad and disappointing but never depressing or shameful. Before we set out to perform, we would be focused on performing well but not feel anxious about performing poorly or someone doing better. We would pursue valued goals for our reasons as they are personally meaningful and not because they are important to family, friends, or society. Our ego would not be on the line.
The argument for unconditional self-acceptance is valid because all standards of judging a person and their human value are arbitrary. There is no universally accepted standard of a person’s worth. Therefore, anyone who claims superior human value based on possessing some trait, characteristic, skill, or accomplishment is making an error in reasoning. Yes, we differ in our abilities, skills, and achievements. Some of us are blessed and possess highly valued skills in this society. However, there is no basis for concluding greater worth as a person simply because one can do some things better than others. We are not our actions pure and simply put.
REBT encourages people to accept themselves and others unconditionally. We are all fallible humans. REBT does not toss out responsibility. We are responsible for what we do. If we want to experience rewards and avoid punishments, then it is prudent to follow the laws and ethics of society. If we wish to be liked by significant others, it is essential to treat them nicely. With that said, it is helpful to rate what we do, reflect upon it, and attempt to improve our performances based on our evaluation of how we could have done things in a better way. Humans find these focused evaluations useful because this is how we learn. However, REBT encourages you to discipline your mind and focus on doing better, not rating your essence. More money, a thinner waistline, more wins, fewer losses, greater height, higher SAT scores, a bigger house, larger muscles, and thicker hair all may be okay to want to earn or possess. Still, appreciate that the achievement or the failure to achieve these things has no impact on your human value. None are good ways of measuring you or others. Each of us is much too complex to rate in total. To sidestep a great deal of self-inflicted emotional pain, think in a sensible way and only rate what you do. Then do what you want. Lead your life according to your goals, purposes, and values. Select your personally meaningful goals and life purposes and use the time you have in this life to enjoy yourself rather than to prove your worth as a person. At the end of your life, I am confident you will be happy you lived it to enjoy yourself in a meaningful way rather than to prove yourself.