Coaching plays a key role in guiding individuals on their journeys towards personal and professional growth. At the epicenter of this process lies the concept of self-efficacy, the belief in one’s capacity to perform actions that will help one achieve one’s desired results. Self-efficacy profoundly impacts the success of a coach or personal trainer, as it determines whether individuals will ultimately meet their objectives. In this article, we will explore the basics of self-efficacy and how it functions for the clients we coach. Fostering such self-efficacy requires patience, time, dedication, and skill. Read on to learn how to instill this successful feeling into all of your clients.
The Power of Fostering Self-Efficacy
The concept of self-efficacy encompasses much more than mere confidence; it embodies the conviction that one possesses the skills and motivation they will need in order to achieve their goals. Cultivating a strong sense of self-efficacy within a client can positively influence their persistence, their ability to set achievable goals, and the consistency of their efforts. It affects the integrity of one’s belief in overcoming any challenges they may encounter, and their expectation of successful outcomes resulting from their actions.
The relationship between a coach and their client forms the basis of planting and nurturing self-efficacy. Cultivating a rapport within this relationship and establishing a supportive atmosphere enables clients to feel valued, fostering a fertile ground on which their strength and their growth can blossom. The establishment of a trust bond, which goes a long way in a personal training relationship, underscores the client’s confidence in achieving set objectives. As trust deepens, it fosters an ideal environment for the growth of self-assurance and, with this, comes self-efficacy.
Communication Paves the Way
A coach’s ability to empathize, actively listen, and understand a client’s perspective forges the belief that they actually can achieve their goals under the coach’s tutelage. Clear and supportive communication, whether through words or gentle hands-on coaching, serves as a guide toward self-efficacy. We may inherently know and believe that a client can accomplish a challenging workout, but understanding the optimal manner in which to effectively relay this communication bridges the gap between aspiration and actualization. Coaches/personal trainers achieve this by always focusing on the client’s strengths. Recognizing a client’s efforts and pointing out their successes both work as powerful catalysts for enhancing their self-efficacy, thereby creating a positive feedback loop that can only amp up and encourage confidence.
By reinforcing one’s belief in their abilities, coaches pave the way toward empowerment and self-assurance.
Building Resilience Along the Way
Increased feelings of self-efficacy naturally heighten a client’s motivation. Building on this strong belief in one’s capabilities, over time, the client fosters a willingness to put forth the efforts required to overcome a plateau; this all originates from a feeling of self-assurance that their endeavors will, in fact, yield positive outcomes.
This process eventually transcends the walls of the fitness center; higher self-efficacy can contribute significantly to building resilience in the face of any manner of life’s adversities. Clients who believe in themselves and can see themselves succeeding tend to exhibit greater adaptability and perseverance when faced with setbacks. This quality, in turn, encourages them to bounce back and continue chasing their goals.
In their coauthored book The Resilient Couple: Navigating Together Through Life, Drs. Philip and Lynn Levy write, “Resilience is the ability to bounce forward in the face of a challenge that upends your life. Resilience makes an enormous difference, allowing people to navigate situations that might have seemed impossible otherwise.”
3 Key Ingredients for a Positive Client/Trainer Relationship
Any solid relationship requires time to develop; this holds for the concept of self-efficacy vis-à-vis the client/trainer interaction. Here, we present 3 important coaching strategies to bolster self-efficacy:
- Invest Time: The duration of the coaching relationship directly correlates with increased confidence. As a coach, recognizing and celebrating each stride toward the client’s objective fuels the individual’s self-assurance.
- Verbalize Confidence: Vocalizing belief in oneself amplifies the likelihood of goal attainment. Statements like “I’ve got this” solidify one’s resolve, reinforcing their confidence with each verbal commitment. External verbal support from the trainer likewise reinforces this.
- Ask the Right Questions: Effective coaching hinges on asking questions that prompt self-efficacy statements. Open-ended inquiries foster exploration, empowering individuals to discover their own personal paths to success.
The Four Sources of Self-Efficacy
In 1977, Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura recognized 4 primary sources of self-efficacy. Their hypothesis stated that only through the interplay of these factors do individuals cultivate a significant belief or disbelief in their abilities. They predicted that expectations of self-efficacy would determine whether one would initiate coping behaviors, the amount of effort expended on said behaviors, and how long one might sustain this effort when faced with obstacles.
Here we present Bandura’s 4 sources of self-efficacy in more detail ~
Mastery experiences: the most powerful initiator of self-efficacy, based upon the direct and personal experience one gains when taking on new challenges and succeeding. By drawing on this direct evidence of past performance, a client begins to infer their future capabilities. In the gym, trainers set a stage for clients to tackle and succeed at challenging tasks; over time, confidence grows.
Vicarious experiences: upon observing others succeeding (or failing) at activities, clients can estimate the likelihood of their own success or failure when performing similar activities; individuals base this opinion on the similarity or difference they perceive between themselves and the other people.
Verbal Persuasion: just a couple of simple words, positive comments, and/or encouragement can suffice, easing overt doubts regarding competency; hearing this makes individuals more likely to push through the obstacle as they continue to pursue their goals.
Physiological Arousal: the least powerful driver of self-efficacy (also known as physiological arousal), this concept does not tend to directly impact one’s belief in their ability to perform the task at hand. As an example of this, an individual feeling more tired than usual does not have as significant an impact on their belief about whether they can write a quality 1000-word essay as previous success at writing.
Guiding Clients Towards Greater Self-Efficacy
Experts who have studied this paradigm offer ways in which personal trainers and coaches might work with clients to “raise the bar” on their self-convictions. Here we list a few suggestions that have met with success in the past ~
- Step outside of one’s comfort zone: while initially daunting and even a bit scary, entering unfamiliar territory provides an opportunity to try something different and perhaps more challenging. Having success in this new endeavor increases self-efficacy; an attempt that proves unsuccessful at first simply offers a chance to test one’s resilience and try again.
2. Set reasonable goals: tackled one at a time, small goals build positivity and help foster/sustain self-efficacy.
3. Take the long-term view: rather than remain short-sighted, those who possess high levels of self-efficacy adopt a perspective of loftier goals, not letting short-term failures break their stride and erode their convictions.
4. Reframe obstacles: By viewing plateaus and obstacles as productive stepping stones to learning and mastery, one does not place their self-efficacy in jeopardy. By recalling previous challenges and the manner in which one successfully conquered them, they can build resilience and self-efficacy.
Training for Resilience
The majority of personal training and/or coaching sessions tend to focus on ensuring the athlete’s success. However, growth can sprout from failures as well. Resilience training helps a client cultivate the ability to rebound from setbacks, face adversity head-on, and adapt in a positive manner to life’s undeniable challenges. Since experts do not characterize resilience as a personality trait but rather a dynamic, ever-changing process, clients develop the ability to build psychological strength along with muscle mass.
Resilience activities incorporate techniques that help elicit psychological flexibility. By learning to stand up time and time again after falling to the ground, resilience activities promote emotional regulation and challenge negative thinking.
The Symbiosis of Fitness and Resilience
One research study sought to determine whether fitness might contribute to resilience while at the same time assessing the mediating effect of self-efficacy. The subject group consisted of 431 adults, each of whom participated in filling out fitness assessments. The survey took into account self-efficacy and habitual activity in relation to cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, regarding resilience in terms of mental health and problem-solving.
Researchers monitored the subjects quarterly over the course of nine months. Data revealed that muscular and self-perceived fitness aligned positively with stress resilience. The scientists extrapolated the data further to conclude that a muscular fitness–resilience relationship arose partly through stronger self-efficacy expectations, and that muscularity and one’s perception of their fitness abilities might strongly align with stress resilience.
The Mind-Body Winning Combination
When a client challenges themselves to execute a new potential personal best in regard to weightlifting, they build mental resistance, confidence, and psychological toughness. Overcoming physical challenges in the gym mirrors the mental battles all of us inevitably face at some point in our lives, which in turn fosters a powerful connection between body and mind. We can delve a bit more deeply into this scenario.
As trainers and athletes know, one of the best benefits of resistance training involves the opportunity to face challenges head-on and in real time. Some clients have goals of heavier lifting; for others, pursuits might take the form of “just 1 more rep” or improving one’s form and technique. If one thinks of these aspirations as obstacles, they can call upon their determination, focus, and belief in their capabilities. They can learn in the moment how to persevere through discomfort/pain/difficulties, push harder, and emerge successful. Resilience “in action” trains the brain that with discipline, consistency, and great effort, one truly can conquer most obstacles.
Fitness, Resilience, and Self-Efficacy
Strength training provides a safe arena in which to attempt a task, fail, and ultimately recover for another try. All of these mental gymnastics serve to reinforce the mindset that failure does not represent an end, merely an opportunity to learn, re-adjust, and try again.
Just as one makes progress in lifting weights through incremental yet consistent efforts, personal resilience grows in a likewise manner. Training reinforces the idea that daily effort, no matter how small, builds toward lasting change, an essential principle for tackling any challenges life may present.
Final Thoughts
A personal trainer does more than just craft workout plans or teach correct exercise forms; they can play a pivotal role in building the discipline and resilience required for the formation of long-term habits and goal achievement.
More than just something in which an individual engages for a 1-hour time frame, weightlifting and fitness serve as mental/psychological training grounds. They transcend the gym floor and teach perseverance, confidence, and emotional resilience. Whether one seeks additional strength, power, or emotional toughness, the ability to push through a challenging task deserves celebrating. The quest for improved self-efficacy and resilience can serve as a solid foundation for all aspects of life.
The ultimate goal of personal training lies not in creating stronger clients but rather in instilling habits and mindsets that last beyond the training sessions. If we can encourage self-efficacy, resilience, and positivity in our clients at the gym, imagine how successfully they will evolve in all aspects of their lives!
References
https://www.theprojectpt.com/blog/strength-training-building-resilience-longevity-mental-health-and-community
https://www.trainerize.me/articles/cultivating-discipline-and-resilience-through-personal-training/
https://www.northstarstrong.ca/post/how-strength-training-supports-mental-resilience
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9095527/
https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-activities-exercises/
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1977-25733-001
https://positivepsychology.com/3-ways-build-self-efficacy/#:~:text=To%20build%20self%2Defficacy%2C%20set,enhance%20your%20confidence%20and%20performance.
https://drscottlivingston.com/blog-all/three-ideas-2024#:~:text=Invest%20Time%3A%20The%20duration%20of,the%20likelihood%20of%20goal%20attainment.
https://www.acefitness.org/continuing-education/certified/overcoming-challenges-special-issue/7730/coaching-your-clients-to-greater-resilience/?srsltid=AfmBOop0IfCq83aabSOGdHOD7qFcis1muakh48qMsrdP5llUDRlD7tX_
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/significance-self-efficacy-coaching-empowering-rf3pc
https://educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au/news/pdfs/Bandura%201977.pdf
