The Science Of Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is a term that maybe you’ve heard before but the true meaning of it still might be hard to pinpoint. Self efficacy is “a person's belief in their ability to perform the actions needed to achieve specific goals”.
This ability takes two forms: First is that you have the freedom to do what you want (which is called agency), and second that you have the necessary skills or experience to pull it off.
In that way, self-efficacy connects closely with self-confidence. I define self-confidence as “as your sense of belief that you’ll be able to perform in uncertain circumstances”. It’s forecasting your ability into an undetermined future moment and believing that you have what it takes to rise to the occasion. And etymologically ‘confidence’ means “intense trust”, which fits in nicely to this concept as well.
Psychologist Albert Bandura outlined that there are 4 ways to cultivate self-efficacy:
- Reflecting on your own past successes. If you’ve done it before and proven to yourself how capable you are, it’s reason to believe you can do it again. Having personal examples of times when you’ve overcome challenges boosts your sense of belief.
- Reflecting on other people’s successes in similar areas. Guess what? Humans are human just like you! This means that if they managed to do it, you can too. When you use other people’s successes as evidence it’s possible rather than a point of comparison to diminish yourself, you start thinking that you can do it too.
- Encouragement from someone else. When someone else sees the potential within you that you don't see, and has a belief in you that you don’t have, it’s inspiring. Our perspective is limited by our own awareness and exposure, and often we’re too in the weeds to see the big picture. Someone else who can pull you out of that, who reminds you of how great you are and how doable this is, goes a long way.
- And last is taking care of your own energy. Our physiology drives our psychology. If you’re dehydrated, underslept, or haven’t exercised in a while, that’s certainly going to affect your baseline energetic state, which influences your thinking. When we feel better we play better. So simply taking care of your own health improves the thoughts connected to your self-belief.
The reason this all matters is because someone who has more self-efficacy is more likely to make bolder, confident, committed choices, that lead to improved actions and better results. Our lives are built from the inside out, and one of the core drivers is our own sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence.
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