We can tackle life’s experiences head-on if we have the confidence to do so. While it’s typical to suffer lack of confidence, many of us also know what it’s like to do a task with assurance. Confidence can be summed up as having faith in something. When we discuss self-confidence, we mean the conviction that you can put your trust in your skills and knowledge. Your self-efficacy refers to how confident you are in your capacity to succeed in particular circumstances. Your self-efficacy is influenced by a variety of factors, including direct experience, observed experience, a significant role model excelling or failing at something, and social persuasion—being told that you are good at something. Your sense of control over events in your life is referred to as your locus of control. People who have an internal locus of control think that their success is the result of their own efforts, qualities, and choices. People who have an external locus of control are more inclined to think that their success is determined by luck, circumstance, and fate. As we discussed in our essay on cultivating a growth mindset, people who think of themselves as improving and growing over time frequently outperform people with a fixed mindset, which holds that talents are natural and fixed from birth. While these two terms do overlap, they also differ from one another. This idea pertains to how we view ourselves, as we discussed in our essay on boosting self-esteem.
