Boost your confidence by building your competence
HUMANS are born with an innate drive to learn new skills. Milestones in our early years include learning to crawl, walk and talk. We don’t just suddenly have these abilities, rather we master them, bit by bit, as we learn from our mistakes and cultivate our skills.
The ability to master new skills never leaves us and in fact is hugely important if we are to thrive as adults. However, it’s easy to lose touch with that desire to learn, to challenge ourselves and achieve new goals.
Developing competence – or mastery, as it’s known in the psychology world – is a core component of psychological treatments for a range of mental health problems. There are good reasons for this as research has shown that building mastery is associated with increased happiness, self-confidence and resilience.
You can build mastery by regularly doing any activity that gives you a sense of competence, achievement or control. It could be learning a new skill, tackling jobs that you have been putting off or pushing yourself to do something outside of your comfort zone.
When deciding what to turn your efforts to, it’s important to follow these simple steps so you don’t inadvertently set yourself up for failure.
First, set a goal that is both difficult but possible. Pick something too easy and you won’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything. Pick something too hard and you’ll likely fail to reach your target.
Let’s say I want to build mastery by learning new skills in cooking and preparing fresh, homecooked meals for my family. A goal that’s too easy would be researching recipes on the internet, while a goal that’s too hard would be preparing a five-course banquet the next day. A goal that fits the “difficult but possible” category would be finding a recipe online, picking up fresh ingredients on my way home and preparing a meal from scratch.
The next step is to gradually increase the difficulty level of the goals you set yourself. Once you stop pushing yourself, you’ll no longer get the surge of pride and wellbeing that mastering new skills brings.
Finally, to help give yourself the best possible chance of success, make contingency plans. Consider the potential barriers that could get in the way of achieving your goals and plan out how you will overcome these obstacles in advance.