Self-Efficacy Understandings

In low-confidence situations you often have to focus more energy on motivating yourself. It's okay to feel less confident. Everyone has low self-efficacy in certain situations. The important factor is an ability to identify these situations and then to work at increasing your motivation so you will work harder to succeed.

There is an old saying that, "Success breeds success." The more you succeed at something, the more confident you will feel that you can succeed at it again in the future. The more confident you feel, the more motivated you will be, and the more likely you will be to succeed. So you need to find ways to increase your motivation and give yourself the chance to feel wonderful about succeeding again and again.

For Example:

If you feel very confident giving a presentation in speech class, then you have high self-efficacy for this situation. As a consequence, you have more motivation to prepare for the presentation and actually deliver it in class. Your performance is probably enhanced.

For Example:

If you don't feel very confident at taking a multiple-choice test in your psychology class, then you have low self-efficacy for this situation. As a consequence, you have less motivation to study for the test and to put effort into succeeding on it. Your performance probably suffers.