Self-efficacy: believing in your own ability

In short: Self-efficacy is the belief that you can cope with a particular task or challenge through your own efforts. The concept comes from the psychologist Albert Bandura (1977).

In more detail: Self-efficacy usually relates to specific areas, such as “I can solve maths problems” or “I can speak in front of people”. People with high self-efficacy are more likely to set themselves demanding goals, keep going for longer after setbacks and experience stress as more manageable.

In detail

• The difference: Self-esteem describes how you value yourself as a person; self-efficacy concerns the ability you believe you have in a given situation (selbstbewusstsein-staerken).
• Source 1, your own successes: The strongest influence is the experience of having managed something difficult yourself.
• Source 2, role models: Seeing people similar to you master a task is encouraging: “If she can do it, so can I.”
• Source 3, encouragement: Honest encouragement from others can help, but it has a weaker effect than your own successes.
• Source 4, body signals: How you interpret a pounding heart or nervousness affects your confidence; excitement need not be a sign of inability.
• Small steps: Break big goals into manageable stages so that you regularly experience success (motivation-und-ziele-erreichen).
• Stay realistic: It is not about overestimating yourself but about well-founded confidence based on experience.
• The opposite: People who constantly experience that they can change nothing are more likely to develop the opposite, learned helplessness (erlernte-hilflosigkeit).