[Neurons] 2022 Neurons #3 DISTINGUISHING SELF-CONFIDENCE AND SELF-EFFICACY

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2022 Neurons #3

January 17, 2022

Distinctions #3

 

DISTINGUISHING

SELF-CONFIDENCE AND SELF-EFFICACY

 

This distinction comes by way of Mauritius where Bruneau Woomed asked if I'd
write about it.  Not only does self-esteem radically differ from
self-confidence (#2), but self-confidence also differs from self-efficacy.
Because the difference between these is, generally speaking, the difference
between someone highly skilled in their job or activities and an
entrepreneur, it is a difference worth noting.

 

As noted in the last post, self-confidence refers to the confidence that you
have in what you are doing.  It is your trust and faith (fideo) with (con-)
yourself.  Given that, self-confidence is based on your skills and
competence.  As you learn and practice and get better at doing something,
you have the basis for self-confidence.  Now you can trust yourself to be
able to pull off that activity.

 

I say you have the basis for self-confidence and yet you may not feel
self-confidence.  That's because there's another factor involved in feeling
self-confidence-your convincer program.  "What convinces you that you can do
X?"  And here we all differ.  For some people, if they can do something one
time(!), they immediately claim that they are now confident that they can do
it.  Others also will reply on extremely low numbers of doing something as
evidence that they are now competent.  Usually this is false and it sets a
person up for disappointment.  So when they can't pull it off regularly or
on cue, they are shocked, "But I did it last week!"

 

On the other extreme are people who seem to never satisfy their convincer
program.  Even though they have done something for years and can perform at
a high level of competence, they still do not feel self-confident.  Some
will demand that the performance by essentially perfect before it counts.
Others compare themselves to others and so that they see themselves as less
than and therefore undeserving of "self-confidence."  Others simply discount
what they can do.

 

Thankfully, most people are in-between these extremes.  Depending on what
they are dong (whether it is getting dressed, preparing a meal, solving a
logistic problem, leading a team, maintaining an exercise program, etc.),
they require the appropriate amount of repetition for the activity.  Then
when they can perform fairly well, they give themselves permission to feel
self-confidence about that activity.  They think of themselves as "pretty
good" or maybe "very good" at that activity.

 

If they keep practicing and learning, if they keep raising the bar and
stretching themselves to up their game-they may eventually know themselves
as "really good" at what they are doing.  Regarding significant activities
(sports, chess, mathematics, etc.), ten years of deliberate practice will
bring most people beyond basic competence to the state of expertise.  Yet
that is still self-confidence, not self-efficacy.

 

Self-efficacy refers to another subjective state.  Whereas self-confidence
is based on the past, self-efficacy is based on the future.  To feel
self-confidence, you look to see what you can do and, in fact, what you are
doing.  By way of contrast, self-efficacy is an efficacy that you have in
yourself about your thinking, emoting, speaking, acting, and relating.  With
self-efficacy, you look into the future and project that "I can handle that!
Yes, I have never done it, but it's no problem, I know that I will  be able
to handle it!"

 

This explains why self-confidence tends to be much more of a feeling than
anything else.  You feel it.  Self-efficacy is much more of an evaluation.
Having walked the pathway from incompetence to competence with regard to
lots of things (e.g., learning to read, learning to write, ride a bike,
drive a car, take a entrance test, interview for a job, etc.), after awhile,
you jump a logical level and conclude- "This is a new learning, a new
development, and I know how to learn and develop.  It's just a matter of
time."

 

Self-confidence is a primary state- you feel comfortable and familiar with
an activity and you know you can pull it off because you have pulled it off
many times.  Self-efficacy is a meta-state.  You are now thinking and
feeling good about a new challenge that you've never done (i.e., fly a
helicopter, buy an investment property, start a new company, etc.).  You
feel good because you have gone meta and concluded that you can trust
yourself to figure it out.  

 

This explains why an entrepreneur absolutely needs self-efficacy.  The risk
taking of entrepreneurs is not one of foolish jumping.  Instead it is based
on having learned how to learn and how to get things done with and through
others.  It is the ability to work collaboratively with others and not to
only do things by oneself.  Now you also know why self-efficacy is not a
quality of youth-a youth has not had enough experience.  When youth look
like they are entrepreneurial, they are generally being overly
self-confident and that's why it often bursts like the dot.com companies
burst in the late 1990s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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134324 NeuroSemantics Inside Out Front Cover

 

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