Three self-defeating ideas Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy works to disabuse people of are:
- I must not be frustrated as I pursue my strongest desires.
- I must do everything perfectly well.
- Everyone must approve of me.
REBT can help you live a purposeful life and enjoy the satisfaction of achieving your goals and dreams. Albert Ellis, the originator of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, was a successful professional because he practiced the healthy attitudes he taught his clients. He did not back down from frustration, failure, and criticism when developing a new, more efficient form of therapy that was not fashionable then. We can learn something from his life that will help us in our struggle to achieve our personal goals and dreams. By understanding and then using the practical philosophical attitudes of REBT, you, too, can cultivate the required inner strength to persevere with your long-term goals.
Frustration is the Price of Achievement
Start with the assumption that you will be frustrated as you pursue your goals and that failure is more or less a choice one makes when one stops trying to achieve a goal. You can refuse to conclude you will fail even when you are not succeeding. If you focus on your attitude and effort, some degree of success toward your personal goal will likely follow, but it probably will take longer than you wish. People too often give up, disqualify themselves, and thereby seal their fate. Success usually does not follow the time frame you desire, and that is when REBT comes into play. My experience working with clients pursuing challenging goals like finding a romantic partner, landing a meaningful job, learning a complex academic subject, and overcoming personal problems shows that the difference between those who prevail and those who fail is whether they keep at the goal. When an individual resists discouragement and keeps trying to solve a problem or move toward a goal, progress often occurs because humans learn by doing, and conditions sometimes change favorably, factoring into success. Unfortunately, life tests us, and a goal usually takes more effort and time than a human thinks it “Should” take. We easily yield to the self-defeating attitude, “By now I should have found what I am looking for. By now I should have succeeded in my quest.” Accept that if the facts show success has not yet occurred, then it follows that all the conditions for success have not been established as of the present moment. The logical thing to do is keep trying because you should not have succeeded yet. Keep testing and looking for what will work. Remind yourself that the goal is worth the struggle, and keep doing your bit to achieve it. Hopefully, the conditions will eventually be met, and you will experience a modicum of success. Low probability achievements occur, but one needs to be persistent, patient, and creative. REBT can help you cultivate these fine characteristics.
Discipline Your Mind and Target Self-Defeating Attitudes
REBT teaches people to target self-defeating philosophies, replace these attitudes with realistic, empirically based philosophical attitudes, and maintain this stance through the most challenging periods. Train yourself to ask, “Where is evidence that my most desired goals must occur in my time frame?” Open your mind to the evidence that your goal does not have to occur in the timeframe you desire, regardless of how much effort you have made, how badly you want the goal, and how much you subjectively believe you deserve to achieve the goal. Convince yourself that you can continue striving toward your goal regardless of the fatigue that has set in due to your unrewarded effort. Learn to enjoy the effort of striving toward a meaningful goal. Striving toward a goal can be rewarding as it provides structure and meaning to your life. Remember that effort and difficulty in pursuing a goal make the reward sweeter!
Performing Imperfectly is Instructive
Next, work on the self-defeating notion that you must do everything perfectly. Humans learn what works in the real world by experimenting and seeing the results of their efforts. That is how we learn skills and get new ideas to test out. Remain concerned about the practical consequences of failing, but face those unfortunate consequences with healthy philosophical acceptance. We learn by doing and improve our skills and knowledge by practice. There is no getting around practice and failure. Allow yourself to fail and fall short, and never devalue yourself for falling short of a goal. Downing yourself will demoralize you and cause you to give up, play it too safe, not be creative in your attempts, and feel shame, depression, and anxiety. Accept yourself and avoid defining yourself in terms of your successes and failures. Your track record of success is never a measure of your human value. Your track record reflects what you have succeeded or failed at, but do not overgeneralize and wrongly conclude you are good or bad (as a person) because you have achieved good or bad results as you pursue your goals.
See that Needing Approval Holds You Back
Another key trait in achieving your goals is not relying on others’ approval to take action and sustain action. If you hold the attitude that you need others’ approval, you will be a slave to their values, judgments, and optimism instead of having the courage of your convictions. Take calculated risks and think for yourself, but listen to constructive criticism. Cultivate the inner strength to persevere despite disapproval and naysayers. The best way to nurture inner strength is through unconditional self-acceptance. When you unconditionally accept yourself, disapproval does not lead to unhealthy emotions like embarrassment and shame. Unconditional self-acceptance is your right as a fallible human. Choose unconditional self-acceptance, and disapproval will not hold you back.
Emotional Health and Achievement
Cultivating emotional health through the flexible and non-extreme attitudes endorsed by REBT will help you achieve your goals and persevere when the going gets rough. Setbacks will occur, and they can dishearten or strengthen you. Continue to make efforts in the face of adversity long enough, and you will likely prevail to some extent. Choose to keep trying rather than to choose failure through giving up. The greater the difficulty, the sweeter the reward. Hold fast to the wisdom of Nelson Mandela, who said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.”