Self efficacy: What do you believe you can succeed at?

The term self efficacy refers to your beliefs about how capable you are of coping with and succeeding in a particular situation. It's not about how good you actually are at thinking of and executing solutions to your problem, but rather about how good you think you are at doing this.

This really makes a difference – studies have shown that even when people with good and poor self-efficacy think of equally good solutions to a problem, those with low self efficacy think the solutions are less likely to succeed and are actually less likely to take effective steps to solve their problems.

A lot of this research has been done in the context of helping students succeed in their studies, but it's applicable in many settings. If you don't think you are able to beat depression, or increase your self-esteem, or learn to relax and not be so stressed, you won't be able to. Believing in yourself without taking any action won't get you anywhere either, of course, but if you have high self-efficacy you're much more likely to take action... and you're much more likely to be successful when you do.

Photo credit pasotraspaso

People who have a strong sense of self efficacy:

• Are emotionally resilient, meaning they bounce back emotionally from setbacks and do not get stuck in negative emotions for long
• Believe they are capable of dealing with whatever life throws at them - although they certainly would rather not have to cope with crises, they know that they could if necessary
• View obstacles as challenges to be mastered, not as hopeless situations or threats to be avoided
• Focus on what they have achieved and what they can do to improve, not on their failings
• Are committed to success and work towards their goals even when this is tedious or hard

People who have a poor sense of self efficacy:

• Feel defeated by setbacks and may have a tendency to ruminate about their failures
• Worry a lot about what they'd do if bad things happened to them, and dwell on how they wouldn't be able to cope or would 'go crazy'
• Avoid difficult situations whenever possible, and give up easily when forced to try challenging things because they think that they cannot master the challenge
• Focus on their own flaws and failings, and do not look at what they can do to improve because improving is seen as a hopeless goal
• Have goals, but dismiss them as 'just dreams,' make only half-hearted steps towards them, or set goals they don't really care about so that if they don't succeed it doesn't really matter to them

People with high self efficacy are also just happier and more confident, whereas people with poor self efficacy struggle all the time. If you have poor self efficacy in any area of your life (or if it seems like you don't believe you can do anything at all) there are things that you can do to improve this, and improve your overall emotional health while you're at it.

How can you develop better self efficacy?

• The best way to prove to yourself you can succeed at something is to succeed at it. Set attainable but slightly challenging goals, and then find a small step (even a tiny baby step) that you believe you can succeed at, and do it. Then acknowledge your success and let yourself feel good about it. Don't feel silly about feeling good about a small success – every big success is made out of baby steps
• Remind yourself of times you have succeeded at overcoming challenges (especially if the challenge was similar to the one you face now). If you did it once, you can do it again. If you've been unsuccessful in this situation before, remind yourself that you're still learning how to succeed at it, and that you have been successful at other things
• You can also use other people as role models, especially people who are similar to you. Find people who have been successful at what you want to accomplish, and find out how they did it. Chances are, it took effort and didn't just happen. People overcome all sorts of seemingly insurmountable challenges every day by being persistent and focusing on building their strengths – not telling themselves they can't do it
• Find yourself a cheerleader. Tell someone close to you that you've been having trouble believing you can do whatever it is you're trying to do and that you need a bit of encouragement. Asking for help can be hard, but people are generally willing to help out if you tell them what you want, e.g. "I need a reminder that I am good at my job", or even something like "I need a reminder that I'm not an idiot"

It's pretty amazing the difference a simple change in attitude makes – changing from This is too hard for me, I can't do this to I can handle this can make you more motivated, successful, happy, and less impacted by setbacks. The great thing about self efficacy is that the more you succeed (so long as you acknowledge your successes) the more you automatically assume you can succeed... leading to more success. Try the above steps to get started – especially if you don't believe you can succeed at building your self-efficacy!

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