Self-efficacy, inner motivation, and self-determination
Self-efficacy is your confidence, or belief, in your ability to achieve goals and change behaviors for better health outcomes.1,2 When your confidence increases, so do your inner motivation and self-determination.1 Inner motivation is essential for successfully achieving your health goals and maintaining behavior change.1,2,3 Health and wellness coaches work with you to build self-efficacy by applying evidence-based behavior change techniques.3 Confidence rulers, self-assessments, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), and the stages of change are all standard and effective tools a health coach uses to co-observe connections between your self-efficacy and your actions.1 With these tools, and health coaching, you can create deeper insight into your health behaviors and often illuminate possible solutions for positive change actions.1,2,3
Self-efficacy
Research shows a relationship between self-efficacy and goal achievement.1,2 The more you genuinely believe in yourself, the more likely it is you will achieve what you set out to do. Your confidence impacts your self-determination and inner motivation — both are necessary when strategically working toward a thoughtfully planned goal.1When your self-efficacy changes, your self-determination and motivation adjust accordingly. Confidence helps develop greater self-determination and inner motivation, which are two important qualities for moving beyond goal achievement and into sustainable behavior change.1,2,3
“Self-efficacy is the situation-specific confidence that one can cope with high-risk situations (temptations) without relapsing to one’s former behaviors. This construct was integrated into the TTM from Bandura’s (1982) Social Cognitive Theory. Self-efficacy reflected what we had seen among self-quitters.”2
There are many tools a health and wellness coach can employ to support your self-efficacy. Some standard tools include: confidence rulers, self-assessments, The Transtheoretical Model (TTM), and the stages of change.1 Confidence rulers measure self-efficacy and generate deeper insights that promote problem-solving when you come up against barriers. Self-assessments give you the opportunity to reflect on a realistic strategy to achieve your health goals that is rooted in your core beliefs and attitudes.1 The TTM includes self-efficacy as one of its four primary constructs, the other three include: stages of change, processes of change, and decisional balance.2 The stages of change are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.2 These stages observe the natural progression of positive behavior change outcomes from the precontemplation stage (when a clear solution is still brewing in your mind) to the termination stage (when you no longer need your health coach).3 In short, a little bit of intentional confidence building can carry you a long way.
Conclusion
Your self-efficacy directly impacts your health goals.1 Do you believe in your ability to reach your health goals? Please reflect on why or why not. If you’d like, please look at this confidence tool and take a moment to measure your self-efficacy. Now, think about what motivates you to make health behavior changes and why those motivations work. How do your inner motivations relate to your health and wellness goals? Do they have anything in common? Which of your values (patience, compassion, orderliness, creativity, etc.) represent your health and wellness goals? Answering open-ended questions like these is the way through the stages of change and one of many ways to increase self-efficacy and activate inner motivation. Feel free to share answers to any/all questions in the comments below; I encourage you to do so!
References
1. Moore M, Jackson E, T Schannen-Moran B. Coaching Psychology Manual. 2nd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer; 2016.
2. Glanz K, Rimer BK, Viswanath K. Health Behavior: Theory, Research, and Practice. 5th ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey — Bass; 2015.
3. Jordan, M. How to be a Health Coach: An Integrative Wellness Approach. San Francisco, CA: Global Medicine Enterprises, Inc; 2013.
