Although I was fortunate to study at some great institutions, I had always been a moderate achiever. As a young man, I used to wonder what separates me with the super achievers. I didn’t have any clue to that at all. Well…a good working knowledge in human behaviour shaped up by none other than the legendary Prof. J. K. Mitra and some self-initiated research over the years have finally answered the question.
The clue to be super – achiever is to have a tremendous self-belief. In behavioural science this is called self-efficacy. Simply put, self-efficacy is your belief in your capabilities of getting things done in certain areas or in general. This is all that you require in achieving great things. This is all there is to know about how to succeed in life. Trust me, it is this simple.
But well…self-efficacy is not a standalone phenomenon…and it is not something which happens overnight. Self-efficacy results from feedbacks one gets from doing things. When you do something hands-on, you get a result. The result could be failure or success. Either you are able to do the thing successfully or you fail in doing the thing.
You may a fail a few times but if you keep on attempting, you may hit success once and may continue being successful in doing that. The moment you become successful in doing the thing, you start developing a perception about yourself which necessarily translates into a sentence like ‘I am probably good in doing this.’ If this is reinforced over a period of time by achieving more success in doing that thing, your perception will be endured. Enduring perceptions are called beliefs. The belief will be like ‘I am definitely good in doing this.’ Once you have this belief, you will love to do the thing more often and you will also be successful most of the times. Your self-belief in doing one thing will spill over into other things.
So, attempt to do as many things as possible…just do! If you face a challenging task, just go ahead and do it. You may fail. Don’t worry. The more you attempt the more will be your chance of success. If you attempt many things, you will succeed in some things. Success will build your self-belief. And that will lead to more success.
The bottom line is…do all those live projects and assignments yourself. If you fear Maths, do Maths more. Attack all that in which you are weak. Just go on doing.
The clue to be super – achiever is to have a tremendous self-belief. In behavioural science this is called self-efficacy. Simply put, self-efficacy is your belief in your capabilities of getting things done in certain areas or in general. This is all that you require in achieving great things. This is all there is to know about how to succeed in life. Trust me, it is this simple.
But well…self-efficacy is not a standalone phenomenon…and it is not something which happens overnight. Self-efficacy results from feedbacks one gets from doing things. When you do something hands-on, you get a result. The result could be failure or success. Either you are able to do the thing successfully or you fail in doing the thing.
You may a fail a few times but if you keep on attempting, you may hit success once and may continue being successful in doing that. The moment you become successful in doing the thing, you start developing a perception about yourself which necessarily translates into a sentence like ‘I am probably good in doing this.’ If this is reinforced over a period of time by achieving more success in doing that thing, your perception will be endured. Enduring perceptions are called beliefs. The belief will be like ‘I am definitely good in doing this.’ Once you have this belief, you will love to do the thing more often and you will also be successful most of the times. Your self-belief in doing one thing will spill over into other things.
So, attempt to do as many things as possible…just do! If you face a challenging task, just go ahead and do it. You may fail. Don’t worry. The more you attempt the more will be your chance of success. If you attempt many things, you will succeed in some things. Success will build your self-belief. And that will lead to more success.
The bottom line is…do all those live projects and assignments yourself. If you fear Maths, do Maths more. Attack all that in which you are weak. Just go on doing.
Reading this, I travelled back in time when you used to teach us OB. The passion which you had during the class and the way you delivered have seriously helped us to shape our career. I still remember the examples you used to share and made the concept easier for us to understand.
ReplyDeleteThank you for everything sir.
Warm regards,
Abhinav Gupta
Self efficacy....
ReplyDeleteI try a lot good things which are new, and to things which I am passionate about, but what u said is correct I can only say that I may be good at this.
I have a lot of perception which will turn into belief one day
Thank You