Discovering Self Efficacy

I like to listen to audio books as I walk my dog, I figure in any given day I may spend 1-2 hours a day walking him, so why not learn something in the process.  I tend to choose books that are either classics I never got to read, or have stories which I find interesting where perhaps I can learn something.  Presently I am listening to the book “Seal Team 6: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper” by Howard Wasdin.  This is a fantastic book, with some great detailed stories, and provides an in depth look at what it takes to be a Navy Seal, and the personal cost that these Elite Warriors pay to be one of the best at what they do. 

In the 5^th chapter Wasdin recalls his experiences during Basic Underwater Demolition School better known as BUDS, the part of the chapter that just hit a chord in me today was during his explanation of “Hell Week” which is the fourth week of BUDS, and is essentially 5 days and nights of constant sleep deprived training, they would have to run 2 miles to the chow hall and 2 miles back for the next evolution, that’s 6 miles a day of running just to get a meal.  Within “Hell Week”  seal wannabes may only get 4 hours of sleep the entire week, “Hell Week” is the part of BUDS where all the people who can’t physically hack it have been washed out, and the game becomes about mental fortitude and the burning desire to become a Navy Seal. 

During Wasdin’s “hell week”  a moment occurred where one of the instructors pulls him aside after several dozen men have already wrung the bell out to quit, and tries to woo him out of “hell week”.  Beaten, exhausted, and mentally worn out Wasdin recalls almost taking the instructor up on his offer just so he could sit in a warm ambulance and drink hot coffee.  He says it was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life to walk away from the immediate relief of the ambulence, just to go back to his cold wet boat crew.

It is at this point that Howard Wasdin introduces the concept of “Self-Efficacy”.  The definition of “self-efficacy” as described Albert Bandura from Stanford University below:

“…is defined as people's beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave.”

Wadin describes self-efficacy as belief in “the mission”.  He states even when it seems impossible the strength of belief is what makes it possible to succeed, the absence of belief is what guarantees failure.  It’s the strong belief in the mission which fuels our ability to focus, put forth effort, and persists, it allowed him to take the bigger goal and break it down into more manageable parts.  Essentially through the power of self-efficacy Wasdin found himself wanting to reach the gaol of being a Seal so bad that the short term discomfort coulnd’t outweigh the long term desire.  His mind broke down the rest of his time at BUDS one evaluation at a time, one moment at a time.

Self-efficacy comes from 4 places, again this is paraphrasing Albert Bandura from Stanford University. 

1-      Mastery experiences, those moments of achieving a high degree of success in a particular area where our success breeds our confidence, and belief in our abilities to accomplish something.

2-      Vicarious experience through social models, meaning that if we see people who are similar to us succeed in a given area then we find ourselves more determined to do the same for ourselves, “it can be done”, their success gives me the drive to succeed.

3-      Social Persuasion, through the verbal encouragement we mobilize greater efforts to master a given activity, this perceived self-efficacy leads us to try hard enough to succeed, so the drive actually develops the skill.

4-       Reliance on somatic and emotional states in judging our capabilities, so basically how we feel determines how good we are at something.  The better I feel the more likely I am to think I can accomplish an activity.

What’s the point you say?  If we can come up with a weight loss plan which utilizes these four sources of self-efficacy, how much faster would we reach our goals?  Let’s examine this idea.

1-      Master experiences – rather than just going to the gym to get on an elliptical, or treadmill for a 30 minutes or 60 minute workout, if I go with the thought of mastering a skill or reaching a goal how much more intense would my workout be?   For instance I have no desire to become a long distance runner, but I do plan on incorporating more sprints, and interval training is something I want to do.  The next time I have a cardio session I plan on having a set goal of working toward being able to do 5 sprints at 9 mph for a minute each with a minute of break in between.    

2-      Vicarious experience – my ability to interact with Dwayne, Kent, and others I’ve met at the Fitness Ridge has been fantastic.  Watching their success is a huge motivating for me to stay on track with my weight loss evolution.  Further I spend some evenings online looking for other bloggers like me who have reached their goal weight, and it can be inspiring in several ways. 

3-      Social persuasion – my use of social persuasion is at a huge financial cost.  I work with personal trainers, which allows me to have an outside party tell me I can do something when I think I can’t.  I can’t recall the number of times I feel like giving up, or that I can’t do something and I can.  When I did 10 push-ups last week for the first time in more than a decade it was my trainer who told me I could do it, I had to believe what he was telling me.  If I didn’t workout with trainers I would find a workout partner.  Our subconscious needs to hear that positive reinforcement from outside of our own minds to believe it sometimes.  It’s almost as if the subconscious doesn’t trust the conscious mind and that outside force doesn’t give our mind the choice, it just forces the “do”.

4-      The last part the physical and emotional state is probably the hardest source to tap, because many outside factors control how I feel, or should I say choose to respond to outside factors in way that will vary my mood.  It’s hard to tell yourself all the time the way I choose to respond is more important than what someone else says.  The physical state is something I can control through taking more time to rest, getting enough sleep and eating food which fuels me rather than wears me out.

I have no idea whether or not what I’ve described above correctly defines self-efficacy I’m not a psychologist, and I skipped psyche 101 in college so I can’t you how accurate I am, but I do know the general principle makes complete sense. 

If we can create a workable plan which incorporates the best of what we can do, and focuses on the ability to succeed as opposed to the possibility of failure I know we will find ourselves happier, and healthier.  Don’t let life determine your choices, see the end goal in mind, and know you have the ability to master your body composition, it’s been done by millions of people, but for each individual it has to start with a single moment of desire which we will build upon to self-actualize the end image we have of ourselves in mind. 

06/26/2011 Official Weigh In

295 lbs

32.7 % Body Fat

42.3 BMI

Holy shit I can’t believe that I’ve had two straight weeks of losing a big number.  I’m down another 6 pounds from last week.  It’s also the first bit of body fat change I’ve had in a couple of weeks, getting on the scale and seeing the number “2” at the start of my weight is something I thought I wouldn’t ever see again.

Here I stand in my glorious fat body, happy to have gotten this far, yet I am now fully focused on the 250 lbs mark.  The 250lbs marker is the next short term goal, this race horse has finally left the gates, I have to show a committed intensity every time I go to the gym.  I will not allow myself to fall backwards I’ve come too far, and made too many changes. 

I have started to incorporate more flavors back into my foods, using low calorie marinades, and incorporating more natural fats like small quantities of olive oil, cheese, and butter.  It’s most likely coincidence but the last two weeks where I have lost more than 5 lbs each week are the two weeks that I brought back a steady stream of healthy fats. 

This week was also the first official weigh in of the two weight loss contests that I am involved in, before I post the official weights, a brief commercial break.

I win!  Sherri and Dwayne you are up for elminination.

Followed by some more trash talking:

I have a good feeling about the rest of this week, but I think going into next week I may take a 5 day rest period starting with Saturday as day one.  We will see how I feel on Friday.

My workout plan this week: