“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” ~ Mark Twain
I woke up feeling a bit frustrated because I didn’t do as much reading last night as I planned and instead went straight to bed, feeling very tired and sleepy.
I found a reason to get upset at myself on a perfectly beautiful Sunday morning because of this expectation that I always need to do my absolute best.
Which is one of the 3 very common unhelpful beliefs many of us hold, creating more daily suffering for ourselves, according to REBT.
REBT - Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
The more I study research-backed mindset/coaching/therapy tools — the less I believe in magical thinking about beliefs and manifestation. And the better my daily experience of life gets.
Here’s the full list of unhelpful most common beliefs that bitter our sweet life:
I must perform well and be my best at all times — or something is wrong with me.
Other people must treat me well and as I deserve — or something is wrong with them.
The world must bring me favorable conditions — or it owes me an explanation.
And when reality doesn’t cooperate (which it mostly doesn’t) — we feel justified in our frustration, validated in our suffering, and deserving our air time to complain and vent.
But who’s actually having a bad day believing this?
Not the world.
Not the other people.
You.
The one CHOOSING to carry the belief.
Here’s what REBT suggests instead: once you accept that sh*t happens, that you won’t always be your best, and that the world owes you nothing — it gets a lot easier to smile anyway.
To find the fun. To keep going. To not be your best and be fine.
Same event. Different belief. Completely different experience.
2 people stuck in traffic, both running late.
One chooses to stress about it - blame the traffic, themselves for not thinking it through better, blaming the Universe.
The other chooses to see it as bonus time — a long call with someone they love, a podcast they’ve been meaning to finish, a rare few minutes of quiet.
Same traffic. Your choice. Different feeling.
That’s the ABC model in REBT: Activating event → Belief you choose → Consequence (your feeling)
And the fix isn’t to change you, or the world, or other people to have a permission to be happy. It’s the D and the E — Disputing the unhelpful belief until a new, more Effective feeling follows.
What I love most about REBT?
It states that all the benefit comes in the reps.
You get homework. Real practice. Not just and insight.
A practitioner will assign you exercises to catch your own narrative, and redirect it toward one the one that serves your wellbeing and life.
(I start my clients with a Thought Audit exercise, then Optimism Reps the following week to condition a more-useful-thinking muscle💪)
Not magic. Just muscle you train.
Where in your life are your beliefs about events causing you more pain than the events themselves?
And what would it take to change the story, so you get to feel better, regardless?