1.1: Building Your Self

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When we talk about building ourselves, we primarily focus on our self-concept which is “what I know about myself” or the overall idea of who we think we are as people. Self-esteem is “what I feel about myself.” Self-esteem refers to the judgement and evaluations we make about our self-concept. Self-efficacy is “my belief about myself and how I judge my abilities to perform tasks” within a specific context. All three impact and influence each other as illustrated below.

image of relationship between self-esteem concept efficacy-300x237.png

Image Credit: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy. (College of the Canyons)

Self-efficacy plays an important role in many aspects of our lives and is a key factor contributing to success in school, work, home and personal relationships. Many factors influence our self-efficacy including environment, childhood upbringing, culture and experiences and interactions with others. These factors can help build confidence and strengthen our belief in ourselves and our abilities or they can minimize confidence and cause us to question ourselves and our abilities (Martinez & Shaker, 2021).

Eleanor Roosevelt once said “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” This powerful statement emphasizes the control you have within yourself. Building self-efficacy takes time and patience and definitely is worth the effort.

One way to increase self-efficacy is to focus on a past success. Look at an achievement of which you are proud, for example, earning an “A” on your English 101 research paper. Earning that “A” grade involved:

a desire to do well - internal motivation
commitment - making the assignment a priority and committing the time needed for the work
research skills - using resources to collect the information needed to write the paper.

Another way to build self-efficacy is to reflect regularly on your strengths. Your strengths generally are qualities or skills that come naturally to you. Some strengths may include:

communicating well with others
staying calm during a crisis
problem-solving
seeing the “silver lining” in the midst of chaos.

Recognize and reward yourself for your achievements. Give yourself credit for overcoming setbacks and using those situations as opportunities to learn and grow. When life gets difficult, we often question our abilities. When we do so, we need to look back at our accomplishments and recognize we have been successful before and can be successful again. Learn from past challenges and how you have conquered them. Focus on the skills and strengths you have developed through previous challenges. Learn from your past successes to help build your future successes. As you increase your self-efficacy, you will start to feel more in control of your future (Martinez & Shaker, 2021).

Enlarging Your Comfort Zone: HACC Student Resources

An important method for increasing your self-efficacy is to use college resources to help you succeed as a student. Many students want to “go it alone.” Step out and enlarge your comfort zone by using available resources and services to set yourself up for success. HACC offers many resources and services to help you pursue your academic and career goals. An in-depth explanation of these resources and services can be found in the “Opportunities at HACC” chapter of this OER text. For an initial look, please use the following link to access Current Student Resources on hacc.edu.

Current Student Resources (hacc.edu)

Don’t be afraid to ask for help by using available resources. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness but instead is a show of strength because you are not afraid to admit you cannot do everything on your own. Know what is available to you and how you can benefit from each resource offered by the college. Don’t let your inner conversation talk you out of a potential career if you experience challenges with that academic subject. For example, if your potential career requires some general education classes that are more difficult for you, take personal responsibility to seek out and use tutoring to get through those general education classes on the way to earning your desired degree. Please see the “Opportunities at HACC” chapter of this OER text for much more information.