Self Efficacy - it underlies Bobski Coaching
The greatest satisfaction I get, and have got from coaching, has been so repeatedly to watch my pupils change their beliefs about their own potential. This happens with both men and with women, but more so I think with the womenfolk.
Far too frequently, women "of a certain age" come to their first Bobski coaching week scarcely able to believe that they will be able to bring about any serious changes in their skiing. They typically arrive in a last-ditch, more-in-hope-than-expectation mode. Frequently I have been the absolute last hope - "If this doesn't work, I'm giving up, the family can go on their own and I'll take up macrame!"
So far, fingers crossed, I haven't had a failure. Big changes in technique have usually not happened quickly - and nor should they, skiing isn't easy! - but changes in self-belief are the norm. "Hang on a minute, this is something I am going to be able to do, if I work at it. I'm not a failure, or a dead loss."
What a marvellous thing to happen. What more could anyone do for another person, than to do something that helps them change their own self belief?
Here are extracts from a report of a recent scientific paper which described a research project into what the differences were between women who were overweight and stayed that way, and women who were able to change. I'd be interested in any feedback.
If you are what you eat, what you eat has a lot to do with how you think about yourself, says a QUT PhD researcher whose study is part of an international research project on the healthy ageing of women.
Queensland University of Technology nursing researcher Rhonda Anderson said self-efficacy had emerged as a strong influence on women's decision to do more exercise or eat more healthily.
She surveyed more than 560 South-East Queensland women aged between 51 and 66 on their exercise and diet habits and found that although women in their 50s were keen to make healthier diet and exercise changes, they had few effective strategies to draw upon.
"This is an age when women's weight tends to peak, and almost two-thirds of the survey group were overweight "Ms Anderson said.
"Self efficacy is our belief that we can produce the result we want to produce, so a person with high dietary self-efficacy believes they can eat healthily no matter what - even when bored, upset, tired, on holiday or at a party.
"A person's level of self-efficacy determines how hard they try and how long they stick at things in the face of difficulties. People with high self-efficacy are motivated and optimistic - when the going gets tough, they keep going.
"People with low self-efficacy avoid difficult tasks and when things get tough they are more likely to give up. We can improve our self-efficacy by developing skills, having role models and getting encouragement from others."
"Education is also a factor - women with a tertiary education were more likely to have high self-efficacy for exercise."
Ms Anderson said her findings were timely given the population was ageing and women lived longer than men.
That last paragraph reminded me of Jackie Mason's gag about "Why do men die before their wives? - Because they want to."
The key element in all this extract, for me, is that We can improve our self-efficacy by developing skills. A great deal of what we do on my courses is aimed specifically at this; without it all the physical stuff just runs off like water from a duck's back.
Bob Valentine Trueman
