How many times have you tried to make a change for the better? Only to end up deflated, frustrated, and “off the wagon” within days to weeks. And then how often do you think to yourself, “Well, I just don’t feel motivated”.

(Short on time? Click here for The Bottom Line)

When we tell ourselves we are going to exercise every day, start a new diet, quit smoking, never doomscroll again, or “start Monday morning”, we create immense pressure, unrealistic expectations, and promises that often go unmet.

You might be successful for the first week, or first few months, but then life gets in the way, routines become disrupted, and the rationalizing permissive thoughts (i.e. “Eh, I can skip another day, I’ll just do it tomorrow”) take over.

Every time you break a promise to yourself, your ability to trust yourself takes a hit. Here’s an illustration of what happens:

  • If you say, “I am going to pick up this glass,” and then you do, your brain registers the follow-through. You said you would do something, and you did. This builds your self-confidence and self-trust.
  • Now, if you say, “I am going to pick up this glass,” but you don’t, your brain registers the lack of follow-through. You did not do something you said you would, which erodes your self-confidence.

Ironically, the more you repeatedly tell yourself you will go to the gym, but don’t, you tank your self-confidence and lower how much you trust yourself to keep your promises.

So, what is self-confidence? This is an overall feeling about your abilities and how generally capable you are. While important, it is a broad concept, and it needs to be built up consistently, through specific actions.

This is where self-efficacy comes in, as a more precise and impactful belief. Self-efficacy is your specific belief in yourself to perform a specific action for a specific result. Highly focused.

You can be generally self-confident, but have low self-efficacy for a specific action… which is why even when you feel capable, you often procrastinate the specific task (such as working out).

Instead, change your narrative to: “I can take the first step” or “I can start with a little change.” This moves fear aside, makes the overall goal manageable, and actively builds self-efficacy.

As a recovering perfectionist, I have learned that perfectionism is often a form of low self-efficacy… “Since I can only do this perfectly, I cannot do it in small steps, so I just won’t do it at all.”

This is why I now chase progress, not perfection. You can build your self-efficacy the same way I build mine: by focusing on small, successful repetitions (progress), instead of some pressurized, flawless outcome (perfection)… which, let’s be honest, never really happens anyway.

The more you grow self-efficacy, and through that, self-confidence, the stronger your healthy habits become, and the longer they tend to stick.

The Bottom Line

If procrastination or the myth of motivation hold you back from making healthy lifestyle changes, grow your self-confidence, with small, repeated actions and successes (building self-efficacy). This is both why it is important to chase progress, not perfection, and how to do it. Small steps, big results.