Do You Possess The Attitude For Success?

Hi everyone, last week I talked about the concept of self-efficacy, and the belief in our own abilities and skills to deal with a challenging situation or event. You will be pleased to know that scheduling exercise for 7am in the morning did give me greater energy and productivity during the rest of the day. My ability to observe the outcome of the decision I made, which in this case resulted in a positive result, helps to build self-efficacy. This skill of self-observation is important. I got a positive outcome from exercising at 7am, which resulted in me choosing to repeat this behaviour five times in the last week. Many of my clients struggle to lose weight. They believe that losing weight and keeping it off is difficult. Past experience tells them they will once again fail if they attempt to reach a target weight. Their self-efficacy is low. Learning to observe the decisions we make, and being able to monitor the outcomes of our decisions, is essential in helping us build confidence in the choices we make. The awareness of being able to judge if a decision has moved us toward our goal, or away from it, will help us build self-efficacy. Last week I asked you to think about something you want to change in your life. If you haven’t already, decide what you need to do that will move you a step closer to achieving this goal. Notice if your self-efficacy is high or low before you take any action? Now take action, and assess the outcome of the decision you have made. What have you learned? How self-efficacy leads to greater success is explained in more detail below. Next week I will show you how to build greater self-efficacy! Check out the September offer exclusive to this newsletter below, and please join my Facebook Page to get more updates, thoughts and research about the psychology of health behaviour. Have a great week! James