What is self-efficacy?
It is the belief in your ability to create actions that get you closer to your goals. This matters because believing your are capable is the first step toward achieving any goal. If you doubt your ability to accomplish the task, you are already failing.
Self-efficacy comes from:
Previous Mastery and Experience: if you’ve already achieved this goal before or have accomplished something similar, odds are you believe you can again.
Social Role Models: seeing people similar to you achieve this goal generates the idea that you may be able to, too.
Social Persuasion: others telling you you can (such as a coach!)
Emotional States: when you feel emotionally and physically well, you’re more likely to believe in yourself!
Working on self-efficacy is critical if you have great goals! You need to first believe you CAN in order to DO.
Practice mental imagery: see yourself succeeding, crushing the goal and envision all of the necessary smaller tasks that will get you there. The more you can practice believing in yourself through imagery, the more likely you are to develop self-efficacy. Also practice telling yourself “you got this!”. You’d be shocked by how influential cognitive appraisals are!
