I fell in love with the concept of self-efficacy aka self-belief, because it plays such a strong part in the trajectory of our lives. How?

• It influences the choices we make.
• It impacts the effort we put forth.
• It influences how long we persist when we confront obstacles and find ourselves in the face of failure.
• It impacts how we feel.

According to Albert Bandura, “People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is a huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failures; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong.”

Because students with high levels of self-efficacy have confidence in their abilities to meet their goals, they tend to set higher expectations and demonstrate greater effort.

So how do I tap into the mojo of self-efficacy? I start the day with something that is infinitely doable. Rather than setting the goal of 30 minutes of meditation, I choose to open my eyes every day and recite my favorite affirmation. It is something to build on. I feel positive and good about that accomplishment before I even get out of bed. Of course, that leads to carving out time to meditate and journal, but it is a building process.

I do the same thing with exercise. Rather than committing to walking for 1 hour every day, my goal is to get up, get my running shoes on and check out the weather with a 5-minute walk. While I am out there, I decide if I have time to walk another 15, 30, 60 minutes, but the process begins with succeeding at a very doable task for me, and I build from there.

If you are starting from zero, even a very small, very doable goal is an accomplishment. We build on our accomplishments and realize that we are able because we see evidence, which allows us to think we are able!