The Worst Offender In Your Lack Of Focus
Lack of self-efficacy, that is your confidence (or belief) in navigating a challenging situation and shooting down potential obstacles is a fundamental reason for the inability to focus.
- Coined in 1977 by psychologist Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is different from confidence, as it relates to a particular task or topic.
- High self-efficacy results in less stress and depression and almost guarantees your personal accomplishment.
- A low self-efficacy results in procrastination, failure and blame games.
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Procrastination, motivation and focus relate to our emotions and internal feelings. Fear and uncertainty play a big role in these emotional issues. Low self-efficacy lowers our guard towards the internal distractions and one is easily stressed out.
A high self-efficacy insulates us from the emotional problems that affect our focus negatively.
- Mastery experiences: Convince yourself about your capability by completing small but difficult tasks using deliberate practice.
- Vicarious experiences: Observe and be with people doing the tasks you want to do successfully. Find mentors and guides that push you towards your success.
- Social persuasion: Create opportunities for review and feedback in an earlier stage of the project, ensuring it is sincere.
- Our emotional state: Remove stressful thoughts and focus on being effective and positive by changing your inner voice.
How to hack your self-efficacy to provide you with the desired confidence, in spite of the inevitable obstacles:
- Break your goal into smaller tasks.
- Track your progress using any tracker app.
- Set up steps to get feedback at an early stage.
- Ask questions, request for help and guidance.
- Keep your stress and doubts aside for a while.
- Celebrate your wins, however small and reflect on what has worked.
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The good news is that self-doubt, odd as it may sound, is actually a secret weapon for blooming. When properly managed, it can help combat complacency and improve our preparation and performance. It drives us to question results, experiment with new strategies, and be open to alternate ways to solve problems — tactics that correlate with late bloomer strengths such as curiosity and resilience. But self-doubt isn’t only a performance enhancer; it’s also a recipe for being a wiser leader, teacher, parent and friend, because coming to terms with it makes us more compassionate and gives us greater insight into ourselves and others. The problem is that many people deal with self-doubt by sabotaging our chances of success.
To bloom, we must learn not to fear self-doubt but to embrace it as a naturally occurring opportunity for growth and improvement. The key to harnessing self-doubt starts at the very core of our individual beliefs about ourselves, with what psychologists call “self-efficacy.” And understanding self-efficacy begins with Albert Bandura.
We can improve self-efficacy through something we already do: Talk. We all talk ourselves through situations, good and bad. It’s our inner cheerleader — or our inner critic. Psychologists and researchers call this voice “self-talk.” Self-talk shapes our relationships with ourselves, allowing us to try to see things more objectively. Objectivity can be enormously beneficial for late bloomers, helping us overcome the negative cultural messages we receive from family, friends and society.
Self motivation is the ability to drive oneself to take initiative and action to pursue goals and complete tasks. It’s an inner drive to take action — to create and to achieve. It’s what pushes you to keep going on tasks, especially those you’re pursuing because you want to, not because someone told you to.
When reaching for a big goal, self-motivation plays a key role. But making a change in your life requires persistence, and many of us find it difficult to stay motivated over time.
Self-control is basically restraining yourself from doing something that may feel good in the short run, but may not be in your best interests in the long run. This includes not gorging on cookies if you are trying to manage your weight, or even sticking to your exercise plan.
As almost all of us have experienced in our lives, self-control failure is common, as the urge for instant gratification, laziness or lack of willpower makes it hard to practice it consistently.