The Psychology of Self-Efficacy: Building Confidence One Small Win at a Time
What is Self-Efficacy?
Your self-efficacy is about your overall internal vibe...your thoughts, feelings and beliefs...about being able to accomplish tasks, being able to set and complete smaller goals and larger projects.
For example, you feel like you can accomplish what you need to accomplish and what you want to accomplish. Things small and large, like:
Getting out of bed
Getting the kids dressed and out to school
Getting to work on time
Getting your work done
Creating new projects at work
Completing tasks related to projects at work
Planning dinner
Planning a color scheme in your living room
What is Self-Esteem?
Your self-esteem is a more generalized concept of the self. Self-esteem is about your relationship with yourself. It's a basic feeling you have about yourself about self-value, self-love and how you care about yourself and for yourself.
For example, you may feel belittled and embarrassed by another person calling you an inappropriate name or being sarcastic to your face. However, when you reflect on the incident, you weigh this incident against your overall sense of well-being and self-worth and come to realize that this person does not define you.
You have enough feelings of self-worth you eventually land on a positive self-definition and move away from the negative assessment.
When Trauma or Anxiety Shrinks Your World
Confidence in yourself...feelings of empowerment...feelings of yes, I can keep going, I can do it, I'm whole, I'm strong enough...I'm ok....
All of these types of feelings can be worn away by an acute trauma such as:
a car accident
experiencing a violent episode such as a shooting or a mugging
chronic physical illness
chronic mental illness such as depression or anxiety
an acute episode of depression or anxiety from a life change, such as the birth of a baby, or a move to a new place
So there are many life challenges that can wear away your feelings of self-efficacy and self-confidence.
Acute trauma, such as a car accident, can upend your entire worldview. Where once you thought the world was predictable, it now seems like all you had was an illusion of control and everything is unpredictable and out of your hands. Your nervous system is unsettled and scanning for danger. An everyday occurrence, like getting in your car and driving seems very, very unsafe.
Living through a violent episode can cause feelings of deep fear and anger. Flashbacks and intense panic attacks can make everyday life difficult to manage.
Chronic physical illness can chip away at feelings of self-efficacy and self-esteem. Not being able to do the things you used to do, or the things you want to do, can lead to feelings of anger, sadness, depression and the loss of confidence in your capabilities. Chronic illness can leave you feeling like you are wasting your life as you cannot plan to accomplish what you wan to accomplish. Feeling like your body has betrayed you can lead to frustration and anger.
Having a baby, with all the accompanying hormonal, nervous system and lifestyle changes, can shake the foundations of your self concept and self esteem. Even if you are a highly competent person, you can feel like you have no idea what you are doing as you cannot even get enough time to take a shower.
These feelings may have shrunk your world.
But both self-esteem and self-efficacy are malleable. You can rebuild!
Part of building back feelings of self-efficacy and self-confidence is to take one small step every day to re-expand your world, where you can feel successful.
That one small step might be:
opening the door and sitting outside on the front steps
it might only be opening the shades
going to the grocery store
riding a bicycle
taking a shower
getting dressed
baking cookies
making a salad
making a phone call
making a doctor's appointment
going to a therapy appointment
Or the small step may be part of a bigger project.
Build Mastery - Small Successes Strengthen Feelings of Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that teaches practical skills for managing emotions and behaviors.
DBT has multiple levels of skills to help you manage your emotions and behavior and that help you strengthen self-esteem and self-worth over time, so you can have a life worth living.
DBT actually has a skill called Building Mastery for enhancing a sense of accomplishment and building feelings of self-efficacy.
Small pleasures and small successes help build both self-efficacy and self-esteem. The completion of actions, the experience of situations and events all can be rewarding and reinforce a sense of capability. The accomplishment helps feed feelings of self-efficacy and also can help build self-esteem.
Build Mastery is a life skill that helps reinforce a sense of accomplishment and capability.
The core of the DBT Building Mastery skill is to do a small task every day that creates a feeling of accomplishment. It's not about achieving something monumental every day; it's about doing something within your capabilities to prove and possibly stretch your abilities every day.
To make the skill of Building Mastery part of your everyday life, it might help to choose a larger goal to work towards. The larger project should be something that excites you or you feel passionate about. This way, you can take small steps everyday towards the achievement of a larger project.
For example, a larger goal might be:
learning how to knit
learning how to plant an herb garden
writing a blog or book
learning yoga, horseback-riding, pilates
learning how to swim
learning embroidery
learning how to use a hammer or drill
learning a new dish to cook
train to walk/run a 5K
plan to learn 3 new trails in parks nearby in three months
learn a foreign language
learn how to sew
The heart of Build Mastery is to have something everyday you can look forward to achieving and that is within your scope of capabilities that will give you a sense of accomplishment. This helps strengthen your self concept.
Clinical Thoughts
Your self concepts of self-efficacy and self-esteem are not permanent. You can positively impact your relationship to yourself. Your feelings of self-efficacy and self-esteem can be strengthened by moving forward in a proactive way, wuthn your abilities, but gradually expanding what feels possible.
Remember to celebrate all your small victories and to be kind to yourself.
