Self-Efficacy—Your Best Asset
Self-efficacy is the belief that you have in yourself to overcome the challenges of life. People with different self-efficacy levels, have very different ways of coping with life’s difficulties. A person with low self-efficacy might get discouraged when confronted with a problem, and think it’s too much for them to handle—while a person with a higher one views it as a challenge, which will help them grow after they have overcome it. Building self-efficacy is one of the best things you can do to achieve anything you want. Believing in yourself can be you biggest asset.

How do you boost your self-efficacy?
First things first—start small. If you’re overweight, don’t compare yourself to fitness models that you see in health magazines. That might discourage you, since you are far from looking like that, and you know that losing weight does need time. You can just compare yourself to how you looked 4 weeks ago, or with your neighbors, or colleagues.
I always say that it’s better if you just want to be better than YOU looked yesterday, but truth is that we are social beings, so we normally compare ourselves to other people. It’s fine that we do, since it gives more fire to our desires, but don’t compare yourself with people who are at the top . . . at least not yet!
If you look at all the stairs you have to climb to reach your goal, the journey might look hard, but you certainly believe that you can take the first step. Taking the first step will give you enough faith to take the second one, and so on. During this whole process your self-efficacy will naturally increase, and sooner or later you will find yourself at the top of the stairs.
Naturally when you are climbing up, you will face setbacks and get discouraged. In those moments you only have to look back, and see how far you’ve come. That’s what those small steps you take in the beginning serve for. They increase the belief you have in yourself, because they give you positive things to focus on. If you hadn’t taken them, you would have nothing positive to point your thoughts at, and your self-efficacy would be low. So start with small victories, because they will help you to keep going when things get tough.
Building your self-efficacy is crucial and it will help you in every aspect of your life. Life is naturally full of challenges, and self-efficacy can be your best weapon to overcome them. If you don't believe in yourself, who will?
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-Bruno