DISTINGUISHING SELF-CONFIDENCE AND SELF-EFFICACY

This distinction comes by way of Mauritius where Bruneau Woomed asked if I’d write about it. Not only does self-esteem radically differ from self-confidence (#2), but self-confidence also differs from self-efficacy. Because the difference between these is, generally speaking, the difference between someone highly skilled in their job or activities and an entrepreneur, it is a difference worth noting.

As noted in the last post, self-confidence refers to the confidence that you have in what you are doing. It is your trust and faith (fideo) with (con-) yourself. Given that, self-confidence is based on your skills and competence. As you learn and practice and get better at doing something, you have the basis for self-confidence. Now you can trust yourself to be able to pull off that activity.

I say you have the basis for self-confidence and yet you may not feel self-confidence. That’s because there’s another factor involved in feeling self-confidence—your convincer program. “What convinces you that you can do X?” And here we all differ. For some people, if they can do something one time(!), they immediately claim that they are now confident that they can do it. Others also will reply on extremely low numbers of doing something as evidence that they are now competent. Usually this is false and it sets a person up for disappointment. So when they can’t pull it off regularly or on cue, they are shocked, “But I did it last week!”

On the other extreme are people who seem to never satisfy their convincer program. Even though they have done something for years and can perform at a high level of competence, they still do not feel self-confident. Some will demand that the performance by essentially perfect before it counts. Others compare themselves to others and so that they see themselves as less than and therefore undeserving of “self-confidence.” Others simply discount what they can do.

Thankfully, most people are in-between these extremes. Depending on what they are dong (whether it is getting dressed, preparing a meal, solving a logistic problem, leading a team, maintaining an exercise program, etc.), they require the appropriate amount of repetition for the activity. Then when they can perform fairly well, they give themselves permission to feel self-confidence about that activity. They think of themselves as “pretty good” or maybe “very good” at that activity.

If they keep practicing and learning, if they keep raising the bar and stretching themselves to up their game—they may eventually know themselves as “really good” at what they are doing. Regarding significant activities (sports, chess, mathematics, etc.), ten years of deliberate practice will bring most people beyond basic competence to the state of expertise. Yet that is still self-confidence, not self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy refers to another subjective state. Whereas self-confidence is based on the past, self- efficacy is based on the future. To feel self-confidence, you look to see what you can do and, in fact, what you are doing. By way of contrast, self-efficacy is an efficacy that you have in yourself about your thinking, emoting, speaking, acting, and relating. With self-efficacy, you look into the future and project that “I can handle that! Yes, I have never done it, but it’s no problem, I know that I will be able to handle it!”

This explains why self-confidence tends to be much more of a feeling than anything else. You feel it. Self-efficacy is much more of an evaluation. Having walked the pathway from incompetence to competence with regard to lots of things (e.g., learning to read, learning to write, ride a bike, drive a car, take a entrance test, interview for a job, etc.), after awhile, you jump a logical level and conclude— “This is a new learning, a new development, and I know how to learn and develop. It’s just a matter of time.”

Self-confidence is a primary state— you feel comfortable and familiar with an activity and you know you can pull it off because you have pulled it off many times. Self-efficacy is a meta-state. You are now thinking and feeling good about a new challenge that you’ve never done (i.e., fly a helicopter, buy an investment property, start a new company, etc.). You feel good because you have gone meta and concluded that you can trust yourself to figure it out.

This explains why an entrepreneur absolutely needs self-efficacy. The risk taking of entrepreneurs is not one of foolish jumping. Instead it is based on having learned how to learn and how to get things done with and through others. It is the ability to work collaboratively with others and not to only do things by oneself. Now you also know why self-efficacy is not a quality of youth—a youth has not had enough experience. When youth look like they are entrepreneurial, they are generally being overly self-confident and that’s why it often bursts like the dot.com companies burst in the late 1990s.