In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.
-- Albert Bandura

So where does this sense of self-efficacy come from? And how does one become resilient? Through managing obstacles and inequities? Well, how does one learn to do this?

Okay, so here’s a little Psychology 101. Bandura, one of the big giants of psychology – you know, the guy who studied the aggressive kid who beat the hell outta the Bobo doll – believed that self-efficacy, or one’s belief in his abilities to handle situations that affect life, is developed via modeling, experience, and encouragement, that one’s belief in Self is strengthened when consistently exposed to these occurrences, and the absence of dependable events ultimately leads one to have a fragile sense of self-efficacy and human agency.

Further, Bandura asserted that when a person overwhelmed by doubts about their capabilities is faced with challenges, he is more likely to give up and settle for mediocrity, whereas a person who believes in and trusts his abilities will put forth greater effort to beat down the challenge.

So, in order to succeed in life – to trust oneself, not give up, and settle for the okey doke – one has to see, do, and hear/feel success, and, through human or personal agency, be motivated to act on what he’s seen, done, and heard/felt. If he adds to that the ability to bounce back, recover, and learn from botched attempts at success, perhaps success is a mere right waiting to be obtained.

Oh but it were that easy.

It’s more than a notion, this self-efficacy thing. For some of us, self-efficacy is a luxury. Living year after year and generation after generation in poverty and deprivation sometimes makes it difficult to consciously conceive and act upon the belief that rising above such circumstances is possible. Trusting your ability to make sound and safety decisions while being beaten within an inch of your life each night by another whose sense of self-efficacy is diminished is possibly improbable especially since it’s happened for 10 years at the drop of a dime. And, it’s possible that your baby boy feels the same sense of mistrust of himself as he tries to master third grade standards and middle class behavior in a No Child Left Behind environment. A lack of self-efficacy begets more lack of self-efficacy and the inability to make responsible choices and decisions.

Even for those of us whose circumstances are not as bleak, self-efficacy can be fleeting or fractional. Perhaps you are highly competent on your job. You’ve received all kinds of commendations and accolades for the work that you do, and you’re regarded as one of the best in your field. But at home, baby, you suck. You can’t keep your house in order, your marriage is in shambles, and your kids are the worst on the block. It could be that maybe you’ve never seen a model of how to effectively manage a home, marriage, or children; your experience with these entities is so limited; and you’ve yet to receive a pat on the back for even trying to keep it all together that you don’t even have the wherewithal to try to keep it together and make it different.

The point is in order for a person or community to be successful, to rise above current circumstances, see beyond the moment, and live life to the fullest, self-efficacy must be operational. Each of us has to believe in our capacity to face and conquer life’s obstacles. We have to look at where we are, marvel at how we got here on the bones and scraps we were thrown, and remind ourselves of the toils that we as individuals and a community of people overcame to see this day. We made it on sheer grit, and if we can remember the grind of our ancestors (the models), the lessons we learned along this path (the experiences), and the blessings of God to see a new day (the encouragement), we’re well on our way to receiving the right of success for ourselves, our children and the community.

Sadiqqa © 2008

When you want to believe in something, you also have to believe in everything that’s necessary for believing in it.
-- Ugo Betti, Struggle Till Dawn

If you believe that today will be a good day, you have to believe in your ability to make it the best. You have to believe that others will do their best to make it a good day, and you have to believe that everything in the world is working at its best and doing its part to make it a good day. You have to believe all of this in order to believe it’s going to be a good day.

Tall order? Probably. Unless you can control everybody or everything else in the day. But, geez, who really wants to do that?

What you can control, maneuver, and believe in is you and your abilities to make this day what you want it to be. You can control your first thoughts of the day; hopefully they’re prayers for the people and the world around you. You can control how you leave your home – orderly, full from a wholesome breakfast, loved and kissed on, secure, and eager to return to its comfort. If you can do these things, you can believe when you first hit the public, your day will be a good one.

You can believe your day will be a good one if you can remain calm and even-tempered in morning traffic, especially if you take time to notice the tulips and blossoming trees along your route that have sustained themselves amid precocious weather. Your day will be a good one, if, when you finally make it to the office, you can steer clear of office gossip and idle banter that seeks to usurp your energy, power, and competence while still being a teamplayer who is professionally cooperative and good-natured. Even if others try to stick it to you, beat you to the punch, or pull the rug from under you, if you gave the day, your work, and others your best and most sincere effort and attention, you can believe the day will have been a good one.

If at the end of the day, you can say that you helped someone, that you made a difference for somebody, that you panted a seed for tomorrow, and your head and heart are clear and unfettered, you can know without a doubt that today was a good one. And, frankly, that’s enough. That’s plenty.

You are the key to making it work for yourself, the key to making this day the best it can be. It doesn’t have to involve any one else but you. Of course it would be nice if others fell in line and did what you needed them to do. That would certainly make for a perfect day. But that doesn’t always happen if it happens at all. Really, it’s all about your action and response to the day and the day’s participants and that’s all you can control.

If no one else does their part to make this a good day, you’ve still got and will always have you to make it the best. And that’s something to believe in.

Sadiqqa © 2008

If someone else has done it, you can too.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, “Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me”

And even if nobody’s done it, you can do it. Why not?

Have you ever lay in bed at night and thought up a solution to a problem, you know, some problem that all of us have? Like if your car alarm goes off and you’re inside the mall or somewhere crowded, how would you know unless your key vibrated or made a sound to let you know there was trouble at your car? Or maybe you have the tried-and-true answer to no weep onion cutting and it has something to do with citronella, glycerin, Vodka, and baby diapers. Or, perhaps you’ve figured out how to leave no child behind by simply using hard work, neighborhood schools, and a paddle. Oh wait, that’s not new, that’s old school.

But maybe you have a new take on an old thing, like Chrysler did with its throwback PT Cruiser. Maybe the old thing just needs new energy, like putting the spice and sauce back into a staid marriage. Or maybe you’ve thought to brilliantly repurpose a thing, like the emerald green damask Martha Stewart Collection tablecloth you use as a shower curtain because it perfectly matches the tile in your bathroom or making cloth grocery bags from old family reunion t-shirts.

Maybe you’ve come up with an expansion to something old, like McDonalds did when it added gourmet coffee to its menu to attract a different customer. Or you can upgrade or replace an idea, like Adobe Acrobat does every 20 minutes. Or you can buy out, take over, and give a thing a new name, like J.P. Morgan did with Bear Stearns.

Or maybe you want to do the thing that’s already been done, you just want to leave your mark. Maybe you’d like to put on another production of “Dreamgirls” that is just like the original version except this time you’re the producer. Maybe you too want to record a version of “The Christmas Song,” only this time it’s your voice on the CD. That’s okay because your mark is your own; nobody will touch the thing in quite the way you’ve touched it.

Whatever you do, if you can think it, you can do it, and DON’T let anyone tell you otherwise. Do it big; do it new; do it small; do it the same. Whatever, it’s there for you to do.

Sadiqqa © 2008

We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
-- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There’s a lot of talk these days about hope; it’s the new buzz word for some. Of course most of us have been hoping all of our lives – hoping the to make ends meet, or better yet, get rich; hoping we’d be and stay well; hoping to meet the man or woman of our dreams; hoping our children will have more to their names than we do. If you think about it, we live our lives on hope, getting up each morning on the optimism of hope.

But is there a time when hope dies, when it’s no longer alive? Is there a time when we’ve given in and given up on hope, no longer holding out hope that things will change or a better day will come? Are there days when we’ve only regarded hope as a four-letter word and one in which we’d be foolish to bank? Has there been a time for you when hope was defeated and unrecoverable?

If there was that time you let go of hope and you believed nothing about its possibilities, certainly you felt hollow, raw, and done. Certainly the world around you lost its color, faded to grey, and what was once bright became like a 1950’s black and white Polaroid. When you lost hope, simply set it down to flicker out for the obvious, the easy, and the right now, you felt your narrow box become just that – a box, nothing more, nothing less, just a nondescript cell of dullness, mediocrity, and predictability. Hope was gone, and all you had was where you were.

It’s not easy to give up hope. There’s something that runs through our blood that keeps hope from fading. Perhaps God placed it there and it was triggered and motivated by our foreparents who unconsciously rouse us to keep its embers burning.

What if your grandmother had given up hope, if she’d stopped praying and persevering for things to change, to be different and better even in the face of the impractical? Would her life, your parents life and your life have moved forward? Her hope was not limited by moments and periods of struggle and uncertainty; her hope was not in vain; and her hope had the punch of a world champion boxer. It must have because you’re here.

To give up hoping is to stop breathing. To no longer wish for or believe in possibilities and opportunities is like water hitting the dam wall. It stops and goes backwards, mixing with other water and becoming backwash. Without hope, there’s no movement, no newness or air or life. All you have is stagnation surrounded by dust and whatever else is left when dreams and desire fade away.

Thank God hope is alive, and even though recent politics has made it a household word, or at least a word you can say outside the home and not be looked upon as a fantasist, we know. We know hope’s been around, gone, and come back several times. We know how to hope and dream and believe. We know how to hope even when the outcome seems unrealistic. For hope is what we do, hope is who we are, and hope will keep us moving toward what is good and right. Hope is what keeps us alive and living.

Sadiqqa © 2008