I can do Hard Things

Albert Bandura was a social-cognitive psychologist who introduced the theory of self-efficacy in the 1980s.

In a nutshell, self-efficacy is the belief in your own ability to achieve a certain outcome.

“I can do hard things”.

Leaders need high levels of self-efficacy. They must believe it can be done.

Levels of self-efficacy can also predict how disciplined you are with your habits and even how well you perform in your career.

Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash

But affirmations are not enough.

Your mind sees through that and calls you out with a less compelling story.

So how do we build out self-efficacy muscles?

1/ Action - the biggest one by far is being intentional with your action. You have to put yourself out there and gain more experience.

Take action.

Being action biased means you move forward first.

If you’re stuck in a rut, stressed or lacking inspiration, action should be your tool.

Take the first step.

Make sure you turn up.

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2/ Hard stuff - I am by no means a great presenter or public speaker but I was asked to present on a topic to 50+ people.

This caused me a lot of discomfort and nerves.

My negative self-talk was strong.

I was well out of my comfort zone and had never done something like this before.

I stepped up and executed.

The presentation went very well, and it formed a watershed moment for me.

My confidence in presenting and public speaking rocketed after that.

Photo by Jess Zoerb on Unsplash