This Is Why Self-Efficacy Needs To Be Part Of Our Writer’s Toolkit
Do you believe you can succeed? Do you know in your heart you can finish your story? Do you have trust in your skills?
Self-doubt, imposter syndrome and feeling stuck are all natural parts of the writing process. However, self-efficacy is one way to overcome them. It’s that belief in our own ability to succeed in certain situations that is our almighty ally against the creative barriers that we might face.
What is Self-Efficacy?
Self-efficacy or faith in ourselves, and in our own abilities, is one of the most powerful tools in the world. It gives us the drive to finish that novel, complete our first poetry collection, to fulfil our writing goals because we believe we can. That’s why self-efficacy is so crucial for us as writers. We need to believe in ourselves and our abilities, otherwise we’ll never get to where we need to be.
From overcoming uncertainty to helping us develop a positive mindset, self-efficacy can benefit us in a number of ways. In this blog post, we’ll explore 3 reasons why it needs to be part of your writer’s toolkit.
3 Reasons Why Self-Efficacy Needs To Be In Your Writer’s Toolkit
1. It provides motivation
As much as we love the amazing world of creative writing, we know it’s not always easy. Plenty of us will experience those days of frustration on our writing journeys. Those days when the words feel stuck, when our motivation has dropped, or our creativity feels jammed.
As author Virgie Townsend says, ‘Creativity is a well from which you draw to be refreshed and help refresh others. Sometimes you can’t visit it for a long time. Sometimes it runs low. The well will change throughout your life, but it’s always there.’ It’s a completely normal experience to feel stuck sometimes. Yet, we always have the ability to find our creativity again and self-efficacy can remind us of this.
If we remind ourselves that we are capable, that we are creative, and that we can achieve anything we set our mind to, we can transform those frustrated moments into motivation. Self-belief can produce creative fuel. We’ve done hard things and we can do them again. Why not create a mantra or positive phrase you can repeat when you need a boost?
2. It develops our resilience
Resilience is a valuable skill to have. It teaches us to keep going, how to overcome obstacles, and encourages a positive mindset. Self-efficacy is the tool which can help us develop our resilience.
As our resilience grows, we learn to drown out negativity. Instead of questioning ourselves and whether we can call ourselves a real writer, for example, it pushes us to focus on the steps we can take to succeed instead.
Self-efficacy also encourages us to take action. Rather than dwelling on doubts about why we can’t do something, it pushes us to remind ourselves of our capabilities and our strengths. The more we drum these things into ourselves, the more resilient we’ll become. Those writing enemies such as self-doubt and imposter syndrome will then lose their ability to throw us off course, as our resilience is too strong. It doesn’t mean we will always succeed; it means we’ll get back up again when we fall down. We’ll keep trying and moving forward.
3. It promotes a growth mindset
Self-efficacy and a growth mindset go hand in hand. They’re like Holmes and Watson. A formidable combination.
A growth mindset helps us focus on opportunities for progression. It encourages principles such as embracing practice and learning from our experiences, rather than focusing on any negatives. It’s all about viewing things from a constructive angle. Knowing that a learning experience is just that, a chance to learn, and through learning, we can grow.
Practising a growth mindset can inspire self-efficacy. By embracing the opportunity for learning and growth in the experiences we have, the more we’ll come to welcome challenges, and the more confident we’ll become in our ability to overcome these. The power lies in believing in ourselves.
Master Your Writing Mindset
As we discuss in our Developing a Writing Mindset Workbook, a positive mindset can make an enormous difference in how we approach our writing. Although mastering your writing mindset is a tough challenge, our workbook is here to guide you through the process and help you hold strong on those challenging days.
How do you power through those tough writing days? How have you developed your self-efficacy? Have you got any techniques you turn to? Get in touch and let us know! We’d love to hear about your experience.
The focus of this workbook is our writing mindset. We believe our mindset can have a huge influence over how we approach and feel about our work. We hope it helps you challenge and defeat any self-doubt you might experience. Most importantly, we want you to know that you’re not alone in these feelings. We’re all in this together.
Our Developing a Writing Mindset workbook will help you to explore:
✅ What mindset is and how as writers we need to develop a growth mindset.
✅ How you approach your writing and if this is helping or hindering your progress.
✅ Writing prompts to help you develop a positive mindset.
Prepare to interact! All our workbooks have been designed for you to write on, highlight and underline. Complete each activity as you go, and you’ll develop your knowledge and confidence with our unique mix of the creative and the practical.
