Unlike confidence, which is a general quality of our personality, self-efficacy relates to a specific task or topic.

With high self-efficacy, you’re more likely to set challenging goals and stay motivated through unexpected setbacks. You’ll view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than avoided. 

Whereas low self-efficacy causes procrastination, makes you more likely to give up when you hit issues and blame yourself for the failure.  

How does self-efficacy impact your ability to focus at work?

We avoid work, feel unmotivated, or distract ourselves because of fear and uncertainty.

With low self-efficacy, you’re more vulnerable to looking for distractions or self-interruption. When you feel you won’t be successful or can’t work through problems, you’ll go out of your way to find something else to do. 

But with high self-efficacy, you automatically avoid 50% of your daily distractions. This helps you to focus more deeply and for longer periods of time. 

There’s no real way to hack your self-efficacy. 

Instead, you need to understand the core elements of how you build self-efficacy in your work tasks and then add more of them to your day.  

So here are 4 elements that build your self-efficacy at work and help you ‘hack’ your motivation and focus.

Mastery experiences

Small wins are the building blocks of self-efficacy. 

The more you complete small yet difficult tasks, the more confident you’ll become in that area. 

After people become convinced they have what it takes to succeed, they persevere in the face of adversity and quickly rebound from setbacks. 

How to use this: Deliberate practice. Tackle small elements of a new skill in a systematic way to continually improve your ‘mastery’. 

Vicarious experiences (role models)

Seeing other people succeed by sustained effort raises your belief that you can do the same. This is especially true when the people you’re observing are ‘like’ you.  

By observing role models and mentors in action, you learn how to react to the demands of the task and pick up skills and strategies that would otherwise take years to learn on your own. 

How to use this: Find mentors, guides, or examples. Read the stories of how others worked hard and succeeded. Find similarities between their struggles and your own.

Social persuasion (feedback) 

Hearing that you’re doing a good job while you’re in the midst of a difficult project can help convince you that you have the skills to succeed.

However, false feedback–like an overly positive parent–can ultimately deflate self-efficacy when you don’t see the results you were expecting. 

How to use this: Create more opportunities for feedback earlier in projects. This helps avoid getting the wrong type of feedback early on (which can kill your belief that you can power through). 

Your emotional/psychological state

Finally, self-efficacy relies on a positive emotional and psychological state. It’s much harder to believe in your abilities if you’re struggling with too much anxiety or hitting burnout. 

As you gain confidence and motivation, stress and anxiety often get reframed as excitement and help push you through rather than hold you back. 

How to use this: Change your inner voice. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed or stressed try to understand why.

A person with low self-efficacy is more likely to feel self-doubt and start ‘productively procrastinating.’ 

But a high self-efficacy individual will know they can finish the task. Even if they hit obstacles or need to learn new skills along the way.

How do you hack your self-efficacy to give you the confidence to stay focused even when you hit an inevitable roadblock? 

• First, break your goal into smaller tasks. Each step will get you closer to the end and help build your confidence along the way.
• Next, track your progress. Use a tool like RescueTime to track your time spent on important tasks each day.
• Set up clear milestones for feedback. Ask for the right feedback early and often.
• Ask questions and reach out for guidance. As you start working, ask to shadow a colleague or look for opportunities to watch them work.
• Check-in with yourself along the way. Check-in daily to keep your stress and doubts at bay.
• Finally, celebrate your wins and reflect on what worked. Take time to recognize what you’ve accomplished. This small ritual will help you continue to build your self-efficacy. 

Essentially, self-efficacy comes from working with intention. 

The more you break down your large, scary tasks into manageable pieces, track your progress, and look for feedback and support, the more confident and successful you’ll become. 

By being purposeful with how you work and where you look for feedback and support, you’ll naturally build your confidence, motivation, and focus.