Self-efficacy is a concept in psychology defined as the belief that one is able to make the changes necessary to be successful in producing certain desired results. It’s a representation of confidence in one’s ability to move toward one’s goals and create positive change. It also reflects a positive relationship with self, and knowledge that you are someone that you can count on. Having self-efficacy that matches or even slightly exceeds your capabilities is positively tied to motivation, work performance, and choices about behavior. With 2025 around the corner, self-efficacy may soon take center stage for many in the form of New Year’s resolutions. Reminders of the passage of time like birthdays and the new year impact everyone differently, but they often serve as a reminder for some to examine their lives and their goals, both large and small. Perhaps this is why the idea of making resolutions on these occasions is so popular. This is almost always a positive act, one that requires strong self-efficacy beliefs.
For those who might struggle with making positive changes, or those who have issues with self-esteem or hopelessness, resolutions can be a powerful thing. Success in this yearly ritual can boost self-confidence, but failure can be quite costly. Goals and self-efficacy sort of have a chicken-egg relationship. On the one hand, having higher self-efficacy means one tends to set more goals in the first place. On the other hand, completing goals tends to increase one’s self-efficacy. Learning to regularly set and achieve goals can have a positive feedback loop that leads to growth. With that in mind, here are some tips on choosing and completing resolutions, and some reasons why creating goals doesn’t have to be an annual activity, but can be something we do monthly or weekly.
Think Shorter Term
This might sound counterintuitive when it comes to making big, positive changes in one’s life since thinking short-term can lead to some poor decision making, but we have the capacity to think long-term and short-term at the same time. You might not be able to transform your body in one month, but you are more likely to be able to jog 10 times. It’s almost impossible to write a novel in a week, but it is well within reach to write 1000 words in that same window of time. Smaller goals don’t have to be part of larger goals either. You can visit a city you’ve always wanted to see, make a new friend, or even start going to therapy.
Pursue the Process, Not the Result
One beneficial way to think short-term and long-term at the same time is to think about the habits you’ll need to adopt rather than the end result you’re hoping to achieve. “Get in shape” becomes “exercise 4 times a week”. “Learn guitar” becomes “practice 10 minutes a day”. By doing this, our goals become difficult to procrastinate, and it becomes easier to maintain our awareness of the small victories that we accumulate, growing our confidence.
Set Tiered Goals
Research shows that the ideal level of self-efficacy is slightly above what a person is capable of. In marathon running, it is common for runners to set multiple goals. A first-time marathoner might set a “long-shot” goal of completing a marathon in less than 4 hours, a “realistic” goal of 4:30, and a third goal of simply completing the distance without stopping to walk. If we apply this mindset to other goals, we can lessen the risks of being overambitious and the pain of failure and create multiple ways to win, while creating opportunities to surprise ourselves.
Try and Try Again
We all know that practice makes perfect, and setting goals or creating resolutions is a skill in and of itself. It’s difficult to learn something by only doing it once or twice a year. Setting a monthly or weekly goal gives us more regular opportunities to practice the skills necessary to successfully complete our goals. It helps us calibrate our self-efficacy, and it inoculates us against the pain of failure, helping us to just see it as part of the process of becoming a skilled completer of goals. Perhaps most importantly, setting goals frequently gives us an opportunity to practice checking in with ourselves, taking stock of our lives, and refocusing our efforts in those times when we have fallen off track.
Tip 4: Talk to your Therapist
Therapy is a more versatile tool than many realize. While it is an effective tool for processing difficult experiences and alleviating depression and anxiety, a therapist can also be an invaluable tool in the pursuit of your goals. The skills involved in pursuing goals can be quite taxing, and having a trained, outside perspective can do wonders to keep us on track, set goals that are realistic but just ambitious enough, and provide you with a regularly scheduled time to examine and re-calibrate if necessary.
By embracing these strategies and striving for positive change with persistence and kindness to ourselves, we can go beyond new year’s resolutions and adopt a lifelong mindset of growth, learning, and transformation.