4 Ways to Give Your Self-Efficacy a Serious Boost

Boosting your self-efficacy is a simple, yet powerful way to improve the levels of success and happiness you experience in your life. Each of us have goals in our lives, but if we don’t believe in our ability to achieve them, then how are we ever going to be successful?

In fact, according to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, our self-efficacy impacts both the goals we set for ourselves, as well as the amount of action we will take. If we have strong self-efficacy, we will aim higher with more ambitious goals as well as be more likely to follow through with the necessary goal-directed behaviours. However, with low levels of self-efficacy, we are likely not even to follow through and pursue even the most meagre of goals.

Therefore, if we have goals in life that are important to us, it is essential we develop and strengthen our self-efficacy.

Luckily, there are 4 simple areas to focus on when it comes to boosting our self-belief:

1. Boost Self-Efficacy Through Creating Mini Wins

One problem with big personal and life goals is that they take a while to realise. Maintaining motivation over a long period of time can be tough, and after a while, it is only natural to start questioning whether the goal will ever happen.

Rather than letting doubt creep into our minds, setting mini-goals along the way allows us to experience a feeling of success, even if we still have some way to go. These smaller wins still fill us with the same energy and excitement that accompanies bigger goals, albeit at a slightly lower level. But what is really important is that these performance accomplishments keep our self-efficacy levels nice and high.

If we set ourselves lots of mini challenges on the way to our bigger goals, we will soon find our self-efficacy levels through the roof. Think about how you can break your big goals down to allow you to experience performance accomplishments along the way.

“People’s level of motivation, affective states, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively the case.” – Albert Bandura

2. Boost Self-Efficacy Through Appropriate Role Modeling

Having a role model is a great way to identify your route to success. If you are on a journey, there is a good chance someone has already taken that path and can help you identify the right way to approach your goal. If someone else has done it, there is no reason you can’t do it too.

However, sometimes our role models can be so far ahead of us, it can feel as if we will never get to their level. Therefore, it is important to either focus on the appropriate phase of your role model’s development or find a number of different role models that you can associate to.

For example, if you are wanting to grow your business, Richard Branson could be a good role model. However, if you are right at the beginning of your journey, it may not be appropriate to read about his Virgin Galactic endeavours, so maybe study his early years in business instead.

3. Boost Self-Efficacy Through Positive Verbal Encouragement

It isn’t difficult to find negative messages that will cause you to question your ability to follow through and be successful with your goals. Often, that negative voice can even live inside our own heads, and it will attempt to be heard any time there is a quiet moment in our day.

Therefore, it is vital we find a way to replace those negative messages with some positive reinforcement at regular intervals. The great thing is, there are so many different ways to accomplish this.

The amount of audio content has gone through the roof, and with the rise in popularity of podcasts as well as companies like Audible making this easily accessible to everyone, there is no reason not to fill your day with positive content. Turn your daily commute, queues and gym time into brain training by replacing your music with positive audio content. Listen to biographies about your role models to hit two self-efficacy boosters at the same time.

Alternatively, get yourself a coach or mentor and schedule regular meetings to assess your progress. Although the entire meeting may not be focused on boosting your self-efficacy, a good coach or mentor will end each meeting making you feel that you can be successful, even with the biggest of challenges.

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” – Mahatma Gandhi

4. Boost Self-Efficacy Through Getting Into The Zone

Lastly, a great way to boost your self-belief and self-efficacy is to use music or film to get you into the zone and help make you feel unstoppable. Do you have a favourite playlist that puts you in the right frame of mind and ready to take on the world? Create a Spotify playlist with all of the tracks you know gets you into an emotional state where you feel unstoppable and make sure you listen to this immediately before you take on any challenging activities.

Alternatively, if you have a little more time and attention to spare, video and film can really get you into the mood. Put on a movie like Rocky and you will immediately want to put on your best grey tracksuit and go for an early morning run through the streets. Alternatively, check out motivational videos on YouTube for more of a bitesize chunk of self-efficacy boosting content.

As you can see, boosting your self-efficacy can be simple and fun and easy to incorporate into your daily routine. Boosting your self-efficacy will encourage you to reach higher with your goals, follow through with your actions and develop the resilience needed to reach the levels of success you deserve. Do something every day to boost your self-efficacy and you’ll amaze yourself with the new levels of results you are able to achieve.