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Next week, my latest book is launched.

I am incredibly proud and excited about it. And we have decided to make one of our best offers ever.  You can order it now at a discount of £5 before it is even available on Amazon.

Or better still see our amazing offer for the book PLUS Audio Video package.  Details below and in our store

We continue our theme focusing on emotions on Adam Up, but take a different angle with it today. Very often people do not realise how capable they are of controlling or taking charge of emotions. Many people that I encounter tend to consider themselves to be passive recipients of emotions.

One of the things I seem to spend a lot of my personal and professional time telling my clients, especially those just embarking on a course of therapy or taking on a new project of some kind, goes something along the lines of "you can do this if you believe in yourself and have some confidence."

Self-confidence  is cited a great deal throughout psychological research and literature as effecting therapeutic outcomes as well as performance outcomes

The classic concept of self-confidence was defined by Bandura (1977 & 1986) as self-efficacy. Bandura wanted to explain the relationship between cognitive beliefs and performance (as well as therapeutic outcomes). Self-efficacy is our own judgment of our own ability to successfully perform a behaviour. Self-efficacy theory asserts that actual performance will be predicted by the individual's belief in personal competence when they have the correct incentives and skills or training. 

I have been writing about it a great deal on my running blog recently because it effects sporting performance too.

Therefore, if an individual has the perception that they can successfully change in some way, that belief and perception increases the likelihood that the change will successfully occur. Judgments about our own self-efficacy have been shown to predict levels of success and support this theory (Bock et al., 1997; Sullum, Clark, & King, 2000).

According to self-efficacy theory, as well as being a predictor of performance, efficacy expectations will also predict how much energy we expend and our persistence to complete the activity - which for someone looking to make changes in their life could influence enthusiasm, conviction to the processes involved or responsiveness to therapy.

Bandura's early work suggested that our own efficacy expectations are influenced by four main sources of information available to the individual:

1.     Performance accomplishments:

Previous accomplishments tend to provide the individual with the most amount of dependable information upon which to base one's self-efficacy. If previous accomplishments or aspects of life have been perceived by the individual as successful, this raises efficacy expectations. Likewise, if accomplishments or aspects of life have been deemed failures, this lowers efficacy expectation. 

2.     Vicarious experience: 

Information that influences our self-efficacy can also come from observing others or imagining others engaging in certain tasks, even if we have not performed that task ourselves before. Modelling has been shown to increase perceived efficacy in a variety of ways in life. 

3.     Verbal persuasion:

Peers, therapists, colleagues, friends and family, and heck a whole host of others can verbally influence an individual's behaviour and performance. In my own work, I use hypnosis and therapy interventions to help persuade individuals to believe in themselves. 

One way of attempting to alter our own perception would be to replay future memories or goal-directed fantasy inside our mind as a means of engaging in what we hope to achieve.

4.     Emotional arousal and intensity level: 

How emotional we are when engaging in activities effects how we go about them. If we feel very anxious or nervous, we may interpret this as a physiological indicator that we cannot cope as we had hoped, which then effects self-efficacy. 

Other topics that I have looked at in this ezine in the past that help advance self-efficacy, in addition to the points raised already are;

a)    Use of self-talk. 

The things you say to yourself affect self-confidence either positively or negatively. If your internal dialogue has inherent negative expectancy or excessive self-doubt, this undermines self-efficacy.

b)   Mental imagery.

You can imagine yourself coping well, you can imagine yourself dealing with issues effectively and you can also use imagery for the previously mentioned vicarious learning. 

c)    Self-Hypnosis.

of course. I was always going to include this. It is the raison d'etre of this ezine! So coming up is a self-hypnosis technique for advancing self-efficacy!

Using Self-Hypnosis To Advance Self-Efficacy:

The focus of this self-hypnosis session is to develop belief in your ability to deal with emotions. So there needs to be a point of focus; prior to starting with the session therefore, have a think about an upcoming situation, or a major aspect of your life that you struggle with emotionally or a desired outcome of some kind for your life. 

Due Diligence: 

You are going to be really diligent with this process; which is going to serve you very well indeed. 

There is some preparation to complete prior to starting this self-hypnosis session; take a pen and paper and remind yourself of some previous successful things you have overcome in your life, or remind yourself of a time you achieved something in life.

Then think of a person you admire and/or that you'd like to aspire to be like. Maybe someone you consider to be in control of his/her emotions or someone who is well and emotionally healthy. Next up, jot down the names of three people who know you well, who you like to be proud of you, or who believe in your capabilities. 

Then finally, write down a positive cognition that you can repeat to yourself when you are in the situation or circumstance you are working with here. This is something that you are going to affirm to yourself. A self-statement that is motivating and inspiring, not too dissimilar to a mantra, but it is a positive statement that you use within your internal dialogue that when said with real belief and conviction is going to help you tap into the benefits of this self-hypnosis session. For example: 

"I can do this" 

"I am capable of achieving this" 

"I believe in me" 

"I deserve to feel good here" 

Ideally make it more specific to you and less generic than these examples which are purely designed to give you an idea of what I am referring to. 

Hypnotise yourself. You can do so by any means you desire or know of. You can use the process in my self-hypnosis book, use the free audio at this website to practice or have a look at the following articles as and when you need them; they are basic processes to help you simply open the door of your mind:

Heavy Arm Self-Hypnosis Induction Method:  

Using eye fixation for self-hypnosis:

The Betty Erickson Self-Hypnosis Method video clip:

Using Magnetic Hands for Self-Hypnosis:

Hand to Face Self-Hypnosis Induction:

The Coin Drop Self-Hypnosis Induction: 

Once you have induced hypnosis, move on to step two.

Imagine and think about those three people that know you well. Imagine that they are with you, or standing in front of you. See them, how they look upon you, notice the look in their eyes. Then imagine them, one at a time, telling you how capable you are, and that they are proud of you. Imagine them telling you that you can do this, you can achieve what it is that you are setting out to achieve. 

Imagine them telling you this in a way that you find convincing; let them persuade you of what they are telling you. Find yourself believing what they say. 

This is not flattery, this is them telling you the truth and sharing with you their belief in you. You then accept this without deflecting. Be convinced by them, let them influence your own belief in yourself. When you have allowed them to convince you of what they say, move on to the next step.

Still watching yourself, now step into those shoes and become that balanced version of yourself at that event. See the sights, hear the sounds and enjoy the optimum feelings. 

Now state your positive cognition to yourself in a convincing way. Affirm your positive statement to yourself, say it to yourself with real belief; almost as if you were encouraging a loved one or a friend to do well in something, say it to yourself with a depth of conviction.

Say it and repeat it until you really notice it positively influencing your feelings and when you feel sure about this future scenario, then enjoy those feelings for a while before moving on to the final step.

References:

Bandura, A. (1977) Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavior change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215. 

Bandura, A. (1986) Social foundations of thought and action. A social-cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentic-Hall. 

Bock, B. C., Albrecht, A. E., Traficante, R. M., Clark, M. M., Pinto, B. M., Tilkemeier, P., & Marcus, B. H. (1997) Predictors of exercise adherence following participation in a cardiac rehabilitation program. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine , 23, 79-87

Ness, R. G., & Patton, R. W. (1977) The effect of external cue manipulation upon weight-lifting performance. Paper presented at the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, Seattle, WA.

Sullum, J., Clark, M. M., & King, T. K. (2000) Predictors of exercise relapse in a college population. Journal of American College Health, 48, 175-180. 

Joke of the week:

Since my old English teacher's death, I've vowed never to use the conditional perfect tense again. It's what he would have wanted.

Hahahahaha... That one really tickled me this week. 

Thanks to everyone who continues to send me in jokes each week, I love getting them!

If you want to train to be a hypnotherapist, there has never been a better time, we are thriving in this economic climate! 

If you'd like to train, check out here for a course prospectus, dates and application form for this year's diploma, fully approved and accredited in several countries... 

The spaces are going at some pace right now though... 

My training school is one of a few in the UK to currently offer the externally verified HPD (Hypnotherapy Practitioner Diploma) which matches government occupational standards and is the equivalent of National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) level 4

If you are on Twitter, I publish some absolute gold material if you are interested in the fields of hypnosis, hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, do come and follow me: http://twitter.com/adameason 

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I'll be back in next week, enjoy advancing your emotional self-efficacy this week ... I thank you for reading...Goodbye for now. 

Bulooo! 

Adam.