On Self-efficacy

One of my associates has a favorite saying: "I give up!"  I hate it when she says that.

Recently, she had a problem with a different agency.  "There isn't anything I can do about it," she said.

"Don't say that!" I said.  "Of course you can."  We talked about how she could call or go in person and straighten out her problem.  The next day, I learned the problem had been solved.  Mentally, I gave her a high five.

More and more, I find that believing you can be effective is the biggest key to actually being effective.

At the first part of this week, I was somewhat depressed.  I had a big worry that I didn't think I could do anything about.  I included it in my prayers, of course, but really felt at a loss.  During my shower, though, I had an idea.  I do some of my best thinking in the shower.

Suddenly, I could see the big picture.  I realized what others in my organization needed as well as what I needed.  I knew what to say that would create a win-win and solve my problem.

As soon as I got to work--before I lost my nerve--I asked for a moment of my manager's time.  It was granted immediately.  I said the things I had been rehearsing, and it worked!  It really worked!  A huge load was lifted off my shoulders.

Later in the morning, I was looking at my list of contacts, which is too small, wondering how I could drum up some more business--and success--for myself.  One person had gone inactive by her own choice, and I was just waiting for a time frame to end to close her out.

Finally, something intelligent to say occurred to me, and I took a chance and called her, said my piece on her voice mail, and, voila!  She called me right back.  As we talked, it became apparent that I would easily be able to turn this "failure" into a success and create a much needed win-win situation for her as well.

I went to lunch ecstatic.

That's when I started thinking about self-efficacy.

You know the old saying attributed to Henry Ford--"Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."

Honestly, the only reason my husband and I didn't solve our electricity problem sooner (see last post) was that we simply didn't think we could.  My son knew he could solve it, and it was solved much more easily than he had thought it would be.  But we waited for him to solve it, because it just never occurred to either of us to think that we had the power to solve it ourselves.

How often do we do this, really?

I was a quiet and unassuming child.  It was extremely clear to me that I was one of the little kids in my family.  Everyone else knew much more than I did, and was much taller.  They're still much taller, actually.

I remember as a toddler being taken by my parents to the old post office downtown practically every night of my life.  They owned a small business that depended heavily on receiving and sending mail.  Every night, they would take me up the stone steps of the post office, sit me on the back of the stone eagle ledge for a moment, then heave open the post office's massive doors and walk me into its cavernous hallways.  I would watch my tiny Keds walk on those marble halls.

It seemed so. . .permanent.  It seemed like it had been there forever and would be there forever, and I was just a little kid having no effect on it whatsoever.  It seemed like something Eternal.  Immovable.  Inviolable. Everlasting.

I don't actually know if it was these trips to the post office, or something--or everything--else, but it took me decades to realize that everything that has been superimposed onto nature is only there because somebody had thought it up and made it. Even the non-concrete institutions like school boards and laws had been made up by people.  I didn't get that for a long time, but peopledid all of these things.  And we're people.

I remember a couple of times when I did think I had self-efficacy.  My dad, thankfully, really maneuvered the buying of my first car for me.  But when it died and I needed to buy my second car, I went into a dealership to look at used cars knowing how much I could spend.  I test-drove a Corsica that met my specifications (it was automatic and had four doors).  My mom came along with me for the test drive.

"I'm going to buy this car, Mom," I said.  "I think this is the one."

She was politely skeptical.  They wanted about fifteen hundred more for it than I could afford.

We went back to the dealership and I told the salesman, "I want to buy this car.  This is what I can spend."

He went into an office with his manager.  Mom looked worried while I waited.  He came back out, and we signed papers.  The car was mine.

Another time, I wanted to enter a creative writing contest.  I was nearly done with my masterpiece, but I knew it still needed a lot of work.  With permission from my supervisor, I restructured my work schedule so that I would have a day off to write each week for a couple of months.

I had to mail the manuscript by midnight on the day of the contest deadline.

Everything went well until my printer broke.  Really broke.  I was devastated.

My husband helped me find a solution, and we relocated to somewhere where I could use another printer into the late hours of the night.

But I had been set back, and midnight came and went before I was finished printing.

I did not want to miss this contest.  I had structured my life around it.  I had been writing that novel for years.

I kept printing.

The stakes were high, and I felt there had to be something I could do.  I included a letter in the box explaining why I had missed the deadline to see if the contest manager would take pity on me. But I had another problem.  The results of the contest would not be available for months.  I didn't want to wonder for all those months whether or not my novel was even in the running for the contest if it wasn't. I purchased a postcard, stamped it, and addressed it to myself.  I asked the contest manager to mark a box whether, yes, I was in the contest, or no, I was not in the contest, and send it back to me.

My husband, besides being exhausted by then, seemed also somewhat skeptical.

In the wee hours of the morning, we went to a copy place to bind it.  Then we went to the post office to mail it.  It was four or five in the morning.

A few days later, I got the postcard back.  My novel was in the contest.  I later learned that, not only had I succeeded in getting my novel into the contest, it won the contest.

I wonder how often we could have something we really want, if only we wouldn't talk ourselves out of it.