Do you believe in your victory?

To be able to achieve anything of importance in your life you need to believe in your ability to succeed. If you have ever heard of the term "self-efficacy" then you know what I am talking about. Or if you have ever watched an interview with any superstar in sports you will also know what I am talking about.

Self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." In other words, self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation" according to Albert Bandura
(http://psychology.about.com/od/theor...f_efficacy.htm)

This has been so true in my life so many times, but in the reverse way, meaning I have given up hope or thrown in the towels so many times in my life because I have simply not had faith in myself.

Until resently. I have discovered some tools to change this, and when I read about aelf-efficacy and how it works I have seen improvements in areas in my life where I have used it, such as studying and now when it comes to breaking this habit or addiction.

So how does it work? If you have little faith in yourself, how do you start to change that?
Accordning to the psychologist Albert Bandura there are 4 ways.

1. Mastery Experiences

"The most effective way of developing a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences," Bandura explained. Performing a task successfully strengthens our sense of self-efficacy. However, failing to adequately deal with a task or challenge can undermine and weaken self-efficacy".

Ok.. So a good idéa is to start to write down the small steps or minigoals you reach towards your main goal. Keeping track of your small successes gives you a sense of self confidense and keeps you motivated.

So what do you do if you dont really have any good experiences yet? You do what many successful man and woman have done before you, you create the results you want in your head, and you visualise them as often as you can. And we who are familiar with porn knows that the brain has a hard time knowing the difference between real life and fantasy, SO instead of using your fantasy for lets say sexual content, why not use it for seeing yourself at your goal. You will start to develop confidence, because you have already made it in your own mind! And remember, we all fall, but the key is to learn from it and quickly leave it behind. Dont dwell on it!

2. Social Modeling

"Witnessing other people successfully completing a task is another important source of self-efficacy. According to Bandura, "Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained effort raises observers' beliefs that they too possess the capabilities master comparable activities to succeed."

That is really what we all do here on this forum right?

3. Social Persuasion

"Bandura also asserted that people could be persuaded to believe that they have the skills and capabilities to succeed. Consider a time when someone said something positive and encouraging that helped you achieve a goal. Getting verbal encouragement from others helps people overcome self-doubt and instead focus on giving their best effort to the task at hand".

This one is a little bit tricky. Some times it is really hard to get encouragement anywhere near, and what you need to do then is to simply encourage yourself. That works to. Create a positive mantra that you can repeat a couple of times everyday. And remember what has been said about the brain, it does not really know the difference between you saying those positive things to yourself or someone else saying them, to you!

4. Psychological Responses

Our own responses and emotional reactions to situations also play an important role in self-efficacy. Moods, emotional states, physical reactions, and stress levels can all impact how a person feels about their personal abilities in a particular situation. A person who becomes extremely nervous before speaking in public may develop a weak sense of self-efficacy in these situations.

This one is really important to! If you are tired, stressed, feeling anxoius or depressed you will have a hard time to stay motivated. So what you need to do is exercise, eat more healthy food and do your best to deál with feelings of anxiety or stress etc. This might be hard in the begining because really what porn is for most of us is an escape from those feelings. So once you get past the worst cravings and get momentum, your energy levels rise and you will find it easier to stay motivated!

So why should one be interested in having faith in yourself? Here are some benefits and some downsides from having low self-efficacy:

People with a strong sense of self-efficacy:

View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered
Develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate
Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities
Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments.

People with a weak sense of self-efficacy:

Avoid challenging tasks
Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities
Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes
Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities.


So good luck everyone on your journey and remember: Believe in yourself!

 

Good one! Remembering times when you had success will help you stay motivated! Good luck on your journey!

 

makuse:
That is so very true! Porn is fantasy, but in real life it is important to have those dreams, so one thing that might help is to write down your dream that might be related to this goal you have on this forum. Let´s say you want to stay away from porn. Why? Maybe because you want to feel good about yourself, meet the woman of your dreams and be able to be horny as hell without thinking about porn, or you want to be the "stud of the year". Whatever it is, keep it in mind! Good luck!