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Why Believing In Yourself Is More Than Just a Cheesy Line Of Advice For Grad Students

neon sign reading cheesy af

Self-efficacy is composed of (a) self-esteem, your feelings of worth; (b) confidence, your belief about yourself and that you can set and reach goals, and (c) motivation, the strength of your will to achieve the goal you set (Bandura, 1977).


Or, in other words, it's the maybe-more-relevant-thank-you-think-cheesy-advice-version of Believe In Yourself!


In all the studies on learning I ever read during grad school (and I read A LOT of them), any study that had self-efficacy as a variable had the finding that self-efficacy was always an important predictor of success.


Self-efficacy is a part of the Foundation category of the FLOW framework, so you can expect that self-efficacy is something you'll see more about on the blog (and in the newsletter - click here to sign up).


Here are three ways that I think grad students can build their self-efficacy, based on Bandura's (1977) work around self-efficacy.


1. Prepare yourself for mastery experiences


Often in grad school, we may shy away from experiences that we think are too hard because we don't want to fail or we don't want others to see that we don't know what we are doing. However, experiencing challenges is crucial to both building self-efficacy and self-regulating your learning.


Doing a little bit of planning before you do something challenging can help you see that mastery experiences are beneficial. Ways to do this include setting smaller goals, starting by reviewing your successes, and incorporating time to either talk through the process with peers or colleagues so you can see that this is challenging for most people, not just you.


As a bonus, try setting up a LinkedIn page to keep track of your accomplishments to help build self-efficacy in grad school.


2. Find social role models


It's important to both seek feedback and provide feedback throughout grad school. Many grad students work with advisors/supervisors who are able to provide timely, helpful feedback. Many don't. Depending on your situation, you may need to find your own social role models to help provide feedback as needed. This can be actual feedback on writing or your work, or feedback on processes involved in doing a grad degree, such as grant applications, job applications, or conference proposals.


Make sure you have good mentors and role models. These can be your advisor, other professors, grad students, family members, community members, etc. Having these connections will normalize both succeeding and failing if you have supportive people to talk with.


3. Monitor yourself - in particular your emotional states


It's nearly impossible to make meaningful change if you don't know where you are starting from. If you find that every time you sit down to do work you freeze in frustration -- keep track of this. If you find that every time you sit down to read articles and you end up doing more than you thought -- keep track of this.


In particular, monitoring your emotional states are important because it can help you see if you are having a range of emotions, or you are limited to just a few. There are so many daily mood tracking apps, or just plain pen and paper to help do this.



Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

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