Do you have self-efficacy?

The article quote from https://wellbeing.mohw.gov.tw/nor/pstunt/1/1809

Every person has their own ideals and goals to pursue at different stages of life, such as finding a suitable dream job after graduating from university. What are the important reasons that motivate us to achieve various life goals, and how do we decide how to act to achieve them? In 1997, a Harvard University scholar named Bandura proposed the concept of self-efficacy, which he described as a person’s belief in their ability to organize and execute actions to achieve specific accomplishments. Having a sense of self-efficacy has important impacts on people:

• It enables people to choose specific actions to achieve their goals.
• It determines the effort people are willing to put forth.
• It influences people’s perseverance and resilience in the face of challenges and failures.
• It affects people’s judgments and decisions related to their own choices.

In the campus setting, self-efficacy refers to a student’s self-awareness of their learning ability or capacity to perform actions in assigned tasks or assignments. After Bandura introduced this concept to the education field, many subsequent scholars found that self-efficacy affects students’ learning, motivation, achievement, and self-regulation. Compared to students who doubt their abilities, those with high self-efficacy tend to participate more, work harder, persist longer, show more interest in learning, and ultimately achieve higher levels of performance. For instance, some college students can simultaneously engage in club activities or sports while maintaining academic excellence, primarily because they have a sense of efficacy in these different experiences. As a result, they know how to navigate their paths to achieve goals in various domains and enjoy the enriching and challenging process. In the workplace, entrepreneurs with higher self-efficacy have confidence in starting and operating new businesses, set challenging goals for themselves and their companies, and these difficult goals, in turn, motivate the entrepreneurs themselves and their employees to work harder and persist, ultimately improving the overall company’s performance and results. For example, some entrepreneurs can manage diverse businesses, and without imposing too many rules and regulations on employees, their employees can still achieve the company’s predetermined goals or even pursue their own ideal performance. The key reason is that employees derive a sense of efficacy from their work, enabling them to achieve specific goals and enjoy the sense of accomplishment, even without external constraints from the company.

From these examples, we can understand that a sense of self-efficacy is a crucial element in achieving goals and can be seen as the process of continuously discovering our self-worth and enhancing our motivation to act on the path to goal attainment. Therefore, in life, encourage everyone to cultivate habits that emphasize the following experiences to accumulate a sense of self-efficacy:

1. Mastery experiences: Refer to the “mastery” successful experiences gained through personal effort or overcoming difficulties.
2. Vicarious experiences: Observing others’ success through sustained effort can increase the observer’s belief that “I also possess the abilities needed for success.”
3. Verbal persuasion: Encouragement from others can often motivate us to mobilize more effort and perseverance.
4. Interpreting physiological and emotional responses when facing stress, setbacks, or challenges. Making positive interpretations can boost self-confidence.