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.

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Affirmations and positive self-talk are encouraged but they rarely have a lasting impact.

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.