Self confidence and motivation

It was in an article by Albert Bandura, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and a prolific writer and thinker, that I first read the term self-efficacy. Bandura defined the term as “an impression that one is capable of performing in a certain manner or attaining certain goals. It is a belief that one has the capabilities to execute the courses of actions required to manage prospective situations.” A shorter definition I’ve read is a feeling of competence in one’s ability to deal with new situations.

If you are thinking this sounds similar to successability, your confidence in your competence, the second factor of self motivation, I agree with you.

Bandura had written the article, entitled “Self-Efficacy”, for the Encyclopedia of Human Behavior. In it Bandura explained, among other things, the interaction between self-efficacy and motivation.

He writes that there are five major differences between people who are confident in their abilities and those who are not. These differences result in those who are confident being able to accomplish so much more in their lives:

1. The confident person approaches difficult tasks as challenges, in fact will actually create challenges in his or her life, challenges the person looks forward to meeting. The non-confident person perceives difficult tasks as threats, and shies away from them.

2. The confident person is able to maintain sustained effort in meeting their challenges. Set backs and failures are not devastating to them; they quickly recover and proceed on their path once again. The non-confident person is not as committed to his or her goals. When set backs or failures occur, they see themselves as incompetent and give up.

3. The confident person has lower stress because of their confidence in their ability to deal with situations that may arise. The non-confident person easy becomes stressed and depressed because of their perceived lack of control over events.

4. The stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the higher the goal challenges people set for themselves and the firmer is their commitment to them.

5. Confident people are motivated to achieve their goals; non-confident people have low levels of motivation.

Clearly we each want to be a person with high self-efficacy. It sure sounds a lot better to me! But what if we aren’t such a person? If we have low self esteem, are we stuck forever with low motivation? Luckily for us, Bandura not only wrote that we can positively impact our self-efficacy, but he tells us how to do it. Come back and read my next posting Sunday evening and I will share what he wrote.