Coined by the psychologist Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is the belief in your ability to perform well when faced with a specific challenge.

It doesn't mean the absence of fears, worries, or insecurities. It means you continue to believe in your abilities despite them.

• When you repeatedly prove to yourself that you can perform well in a given situation, you slowly build up a belief in your ability.
• Confidence requires managing insecurities well.
• It's hard to deal with your insecurity well if you don’t have the ability to manage them well.

Building self-efficacy requires the ability to manage insecurities.

Manage insecurity by practicing difficult conversations with your spouse or by having Chinese food for dinner instead of burgers.

The key is that if you’re repeatedly struggling to build confidence in a specific area, you need to practice with a smaller version of a goal and continue building up both sides of your self-confidence: managing insecurities well and building self-efficacy.