Nepuga team discusses goals and self-efficacy in an integration and development project

The fourth group to take part in Nepuga's development and integration podcast was the “Brilliant Minds” group, with five members participating. At the table were employees Marcela Ferreira, from Human Resources, Lucas Cárnio, from Academic Affairs, Bruno Gomes, from Sales, Gabriel Silvestre, from Marketing, and Anderson Silva, IT Technician.

The Nepuga team discusses Goals and Self-Efficacy and held a conversation about what they mean and how to practice them in order to reach goals and grow individually.

Diving into the topic, Marcela breaks down what a goal is, using the literal definition of the word. A goal is the ability to set targets, whether short-, medium-, or long-term. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is a concept introduced by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. According to the scholar, self-efficacy is understood as the belief an individual has in their ability to successfully carry out a given activity.

Bringing the topic to the workplace, Bruno offers an analysis of psychologist Bandura's own reasoning. For him, self-efficacy is each individual's very capacity to believe in themselves, how effective each person is at meeting their goals when carrying out their activities. In other words, self-efficacy is directly tied to achieving the goal.

Of course, these analyses are mainly based on everyday corporate life, but having or working on your self-efficacy applies to many types of relationships, whether family, romantic, or with friends.

Lucas adds that self-efficacy has a strong relationship with procrastination; that is, the higher the self-efficacy, the less procrastination, thus avoiding disappointment, frustration, or anxiety over activities that would be left unfinished.

How can you work to succeed and be self-efficacious?

The group continues along this line of reasoning, presenting models for achieving goals and keeping your mind active so that your process of reaching targets is constant. One of them is that setting very big goals can make you give up along the way.

Gabriel Silvestre points out that the ideal in these situations is for the individual to set small goals throughout the day, so that these achieved goals serve as a boost of self-esteem for facing the next obstacles. It becomes natural to manage harder tasks if you have the feeling that you have overcome other difficulties in your day-to-day.

It is worth remembering that goals and self-efficacy walk side by side. It becomes almost impossible to succeed at a given activity if your belief in your own potential, that is, your self-efficacy, is not “up to date.”

You are not born with this quality, and it is something that is built over a lifetime with each battle won.

Nepuga group discusses goals and self-efficacy

As mentioned earlier, it is not possible to be born self-efficacious, but it is possible to work on this quality throughout life. Two situations contribute to building self-efficacy: experience and observation.

Experience is one of the strongest and most powerful foundations for having high self-efficacy. Taking part in situations and tasks, living that moment so you can draw out the positives and negatives. These analyses can be considered cognitive and metacognitive: the cognitive ones are the lessons learned during that life experience, and the metacognitive ones are what is done with the experience gained, how to enhance those lessons.

Do you recognize your qualities?

Another point highlighted by the group is how people, especially in childhood, have their creativity cut short and how this can interfere with development. The belittling effect is very strong when we need to understand ourselves as people with skills and qualities. How many times have you received a compliment and felt embarrassed or unsure whether you really deserved it?

These cases can hinder that individual's growth, making them feel unable to carry out activities and reach their goals.

It is important to observe this process of working on your self-esteem and having tools to reach goals in any environment, as it directly influences the completion of certain tasks, leading back to self-efficacy.

One of the examples mentioned is constructive feedback. Many times we receive only negative assessments of work done and forget that there are also positive points worth praising.

Building on this analysis, Lucas shared a recent experience with his coordinator, Bruna Puga, in which she had outlined some points and given him feedback on his work activities. “What I thought was really great about the feedback she gave me was that she structured some competencies, reinforcing that I should keep doing certain things, and pointed out some areas I should watch and improve.”

Bruno offered a reflection: besides managers, when you have coworkers who also support you, that boosts your self-efficacy. “I work in sales and not every day is a good day. Having people around us who encourage us and motivate us with words of reinforcement completely changes our perception of that situation and gives us the strength to keep going and understand that one specific moment does not reflect our quality.”

Self-efficacy strategies

The group offered some techniques that can be used to work on self-efficacy. One of them is developing personal skills. To perform an activity, a person needs to become better at it. Taking courses, for example, is a way of understanding that the more capable you are, the better your chance of completing that task with excellence.

Another point is creating a “positive mind.” When you set a goal to meet, you go into execution with the mindset that you will manage to complete it successfully. This mindset can “smooth the path” to completion and help you be prepared for adverse situations, should they happen.

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