The key to understanding what motivates you đź‘€

June 16, 2024

Welcome to The Productivity Blueprint newsletter 🗞️

Last week we explored the challenges of digital information overload. If you missed last week, you can catch up here đź™‚

Today, we explore self-efficacy: the belief in one's ability to succeed and how this influences your motivation. Let’s dive in.

“Bandura's theory of self-efficacy is closely related to the concept of motivation in that a person's beliefs are fundamental to his aspirations”

Source

This article dives into a hugely influential concept from psychology of motivation, it would be Albert Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy goes beyond the traditional rational expectations theory by emphasizing the importance of believing in one's ability to achieve a desired outcome. This belief in one's capability to perform specific actions influences motivation significantly.

Bandura's theory suggests that self-efficacy is influenced by four major factors:

  1. Bodily arousal: Think of the sweaty palms and racing heart that accompany stage fright or the queasiness that comes before a big exam. These can make it harder to perform, even if you otherwise would be able to in a relaxed state.

  2. Verbal persuasion: Simple affirmations that you can or can’t do something can influence self-efficacy, but the impact is unreliable.

  3. Vicarious experience: Witnessing someone perform the task increases self-efficacy.

  4. Personal mastery: Personally experiencing success with a task (or something like it) is the most powerful tool improving self-efficacy.

Success builds self-efficacy, while failure can diminish it, creating a feedback loop that affects motivation. Understanding self-efficacy helps explain why individuals may or may not pursue certain goals, and it has implications for how motivation can be cultivated and maintained.

TL/DR: Self-efficacy, proposed by Albert Bandura, is the belief in one's ability to succeed in specific tasks. It influences motivation significantly, going beyond rational expectations theory.

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đź’ˇ Challenge of the week

This week, evaluate your motivation levels and how it may be linked to self-efficacy. Brainstorm ways of increasing it using Bandura’s 4 main factors.

That’s all for this newsletter! We hope you enjoyed learning more about self-efficacy! If you have any comments or questions — we’d love to hear from you, just respond back to this email 🙂 

Until next week,

The Productivity Blueprint Team

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