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.
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.
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.
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