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Perseverance and Self-Efficacy

If one remained as careful at the end as at the beginning
there would be no failure

 —  Lao Tsu

In contrast to ordinary language in which a word may mean different things in different contexts or to different people, technical terms have a single definition so there is less chance for miscommunication. Self-Efficacy refers to your belief that you will be able to successfully achieve your intended outcome in a particular domain. For example, “I can fix any computer problem” is the kind of statement made by a person has high self-efficacy in that domain. That same person may have low self-efficacy in another domain: “I am a nerd and will probably be socially awkward at the party.”

My clients tend to be impressive individuals who generally accomplish what they set out to accomplish; they typically develop the necessary skills and work industriously until they achieve their goal. In other words, they have high self-efficacy in most domains of their life. They seek therapy because in at least one domain, they perform less well — astoundingly less well. Seemingly, no matter what they do, they cannot seem to achieve good outcome in this domain. Their recurring pattern of perceived failure is both the cause and effect of low self-efficacy.

As you would expect, self-efficacy influences performance: People with high self-efficacy can tolerate physical discomfort and surprising amounts of frustration, and yet they persevere, creatively solve problems, and stay the course until one way or another they accomplish what they set out to accomplish. In contrast, people with low self-efficacy tend to abandon the effort after minor discomforts or frustrations. “I’m not going to succeed anyway, so why suffer more than necessary?” is an example of the demoralized attitude of a person with low self-efficacy.

Achieving a worthwhile outcome often requires that you persevere through at least some discomfort or frustration. A mountain climber would never achieve the intended outcome if [s]he abandoned the task at the first sign of discomfort or frustration. It is persevering in the face of difficulty that is part of the adventure of mountain climbing. But discomfort and frustration do not evoke a heroic reaction when an individual has low self-efficacy in a particular domain. Instead of triggering resolve and creative problem solving, setbacks often elicit negative emotional reactions such as hopelessness, shame, or self-loathing, which in turn trigger the motivation to abandon the effort.

A Peak Experience

Mountain climbing is a metaphor for a difficult but surmountable challenge. It would be foolhardy to attempt a serious climb without proper preparation or without the understanding that you will probably encounter physical discomfort and difficult challenges along the way. Despite the dangers and obstacles, most people who set out to climb a mountain successfully achieve their goal and remember their adventures as peak experiences. Mountain climbing is hard and often painful, but people take it on voluntarily without financial compensation because it’s fun to experience the enhanced self-efficacy that results from mastering a difficult challenge. In fact, when competent individuals have realistic expectations about the nature of their challenge, they tend to perform responsibly, and persevere—despite the physical and mental discomforts they encounter—until the goal is achieved. The difficulty of the challenge is in fact an essential part of the story, and the whole enterprise—including the discomfort—is often remembered as a positive experience.

It is important to distinguish between process and outcome. The mountain summit is the nominal or outcome goal of the mountain climber’s efforts. Performing well is the process goal. For the climber, the real goal of going mountain climbing is the exhilaration — the peak experience — that results from engaging the challenge. The function of the summit is to provide a focus that gives structure to the activity and later to the story the climber will tell friends, family, and self. If, for example, a storm developed during the climb and the team performed brilliantly by getting everyone off the mountain with no injuries, the climber would feel successful despite failing to achieve the nominal goal of reaching the summit.

Self-Efficacy Research Highlights

The heroic response to low self-efficacy

The solution to low self-efficacy is persistence and keeping your attention on solution-focused [rather than self-focused] thinking.

Question: Why is it that a lost object always turns up in the last place you look for it?

Answer: Because once you find it you can stop looking

Good outcome is the byproduct of doing what needs to be done despite the temptation to defect. As your Self-efficacy increases your vulnerability to this temptation decreases.

To get yourself to put out the heroic effort required to overcome the handicapping effects of low self-efficacy, download and listen to this audio file: Affirmations. [Affirmations use the hypnotic technique of Suggestion to counter the harmful suggestion that results from expectations of failure. For more on the intentional use of suggestion see Suggestion in the Service of the Will].

Thought Experiment: Efficacy Enhancing Imagery.

Consider an area of your life in which you are usually successful—athletic, artistic, occupational, social, etc—and imagine what it feels like to be you when you take on a challenge in this domain. Elaborate this imagery until you experience the confident state associated with high self-efficacy. Now, imagine that you are presented with an impressive new challenge in this domain: What is your attitude toward it? How would you expect to react to the discomforts and frustrations you encounter?

Judging yourself is the first entrapment mechanism

Low self-efficacy results from evaluating yourself. Judgment turned on the self sets up the perverse circumstance where the appraiser and the subject of the appraisal are the same. A bias toward self-criticism turns a weird circumstance into a disastrous trap.

This is a nasty trap because the perseverance you need to escape it is sapped by the loss of self-efficacy that results from being caught in this trap. How can you access the perseverance available to you in domains where you feel confident?

The flexibility to change requires high self-efficacy

Marcus Aurelius—the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher argued against judging the self negatively. He recommended the art of “having no opinion. . . . Better to suspend judgment altogether." Easy for him to say.

Those of us who don't have the self-efficacy of the emperor of Rome at the height of its power behave tentatively in situations where we have failed repeatedly. Low self-efficacy resulting from past failures makes it difficult to perform flexibly and creatively in those situations. To perform effectively you need to find a way to break free of this "failure begets failure" trap. If only you could pretend to believe that you could perform well in sukch situations.

 

 

 

You're so gullible that. . .(you accept the most salient opinion as true) > >
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