Make 2022 Amazing Part IV: The Role of Self Efficacy

Self efficacy is the belief in yourself and your abilities. And it is central to success in achieving your goals.

Video Transcript

I have recently #beenthinking about the concept of self efficacy. What does it mean? And more importantly, what does it mean for you and I in achieving our goals in the new year? Let's talk about it.

Hi, my name is Anthony Sanni, and on #BEENTHINKING I share productivity and personal development insights to help you achieve your best in life, career and business. And on this episode, I want to continue the conversation on achieving our goals in the New Year by discussing a concept that I believe is central to those goals and achieving them. And that is self efficacy.

Self Efficacy

So what exactly is self-efficacy? Self-efficacy is a concept that was put forward by Stanford Professor of Social Science Albert Bandura in his aptly titled Paper - Self-efficacy. The concept is quite straightforward, but I'd like you to hear it in Dr Bandura's own words. Let me read that to you.

"Perceived self-efficacy is concerned with people's beliefs in their ability to influence events that affect their lives. Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to undertake activities or to persevere in the face of difficulties."

Dr Albert Bandura

Now, in that short excerpt from Dr Bandura's paper, lie two important reasons why self-efficacy is critical to your ability to achieve your goals in the new year.

Number one, it talks about people's perceived ability to influence events related to their lives by their actions.

This one is interesting. In the previous video, I think that was video number three in this series, we talked about the importance of taking action. But underneath that is the belief that your actions can actually influence events. Why exercise or eat a healthy diet if you believe it's not going to make a difference in your weight or your sense of well-being and energy? Why invest in your business if you don't think that business is going to be successful.

You see, without self-efficacy, the whole exercise of goal setting is a nonstarter.

But if you're watching this, I believe you already have some self-efficacy. You already believe that you can affect events by your actions. And that's why you're setting goals in the first place. And that brings us to number two, the number two reason why self-efficacy is so important. And this one is a little less obvious, and that is how

self-efficacy enables you to overcome challenges and difficulties in the process of pursuing those goals.

Look, here's the thing—we make plans, and I'm a big believer and advocate for making plans, but we make those plans based on what we know at the time.

The truth is, once you get into it, once you get into pursuing those goals, you will encounter challenges, challenges you could never have foreseen or that you just didn't foresee. If you don't believe, if you don't have the self-efficacy that you can effect change by your actions, the odds that you will give up at the first sign of trouble go sky high.

But if you do believe that things might be difficult now, but I have or I can obtain what I need to be able to overcome this difficulty, whether that be learning something new, making a new contact, adjusting my approach, adapting my environment, whatever that may be.

If you believe that you possess or can possess what it will take to overcome that challenge, then the odds are that you will push through and ultimately achieve your goal. It's more than just the belief that you can effect change by your actions.

It's also the belief that when you encounter difficulties, you can make the necessary adjustments to keep moving in the right direction in spite of the challenges.

That's what I have #beenthinking about—the role of self-efficacy in achieving our goals for the new year.

This brings us to the fourth part of the four part series on achieving goals. If you haven't watched any of the other videos, I recommend you check out my feed for the first three videos, and more important than watching the videos is putting what is in the videos into action. And I believe it'll make a world of difference for you in the achievement of your goals.

Until the next episode, as always, I am still Anthony Sanni, encouraging you be your best, do your best make next year fantastic. I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.