Building Lasting Habits: Your New Year’s Resolutions and Regulatory Self-efficacy

By Murray Mackenzie

Regulatory self-efficacy (RSE) is an internal belief in your ability to manage your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours in order to stick to a plan or achieve a particular goal. It’s less about willpower than it is about your belief that you can consistently execute the steps involved in changing a habit. When New Year resolutions falter, it’s often more to do with low RSE than lack of desire.

Albert Bandura, the psychologist who constructed the theory of self-efficacy, suggests that RSE emanates from four different sources: past successes, modelled success, positive self-talk and body cues. 

Here are some CBT tips to strengthen your belief that you can reliably implement your valued goals:

Mastery Experiences: 

Creating a history of success with self-regulation is about starting small and creating momentum. Rather than focusing on the goal as “run a marathon”, break the goal down into  what’s immediately achievable like, “run for 15 minutes three times this week”. Record your process in a paper or digital journal to make it tangible.

Vicarious Experiences:

Find and observe role models. Notice how others with strong self-regulation manage time and handle stress. Tap into social support by surrounding yourself with others who you know have good self-regulation skills. This may look like joining a study group to help stay on task, or exercise community. This cultivates the mindset of, “If they can do it, so can I”.  Observe how others cope with setbacks.This normalises the experience of not succeeding flawlessly and supports your resilience.

The Power of Encouragement

Seek out credible sources of encouragement from people you trust and respect. This could be a mentor, coach, therapist or teacher. The encouragement they give could be the push you need to exert the next level of effort. Encouraging yourself is about helpful self-talk. Become more aware of what you say to yourself and how you say it. Try to reframe a thought like, “I’ll never be able to finish this” with, “this is a tough challenge, but I’ve overcome difficult things before, and I can take this one step at a time”.

Managing your Internal Signals

Mindfulness practice will allow you to become aware of your emotional and physiological states without judgement. This is the first step towards effective self regulation. By recognising that you feel overwhelmed or anxious, you can then choose how to respond behaviourally rather than reacting automatically. This tends to guide you towards helpful engagement rather than unhelpful avoidance. Sleep, diet and exercise are fundamental preconditions for healthy self-regulation. When you are well rested and nourished, you have more mental resources to draw on.

By actively engaging with these four domains, you can systematically and sustainably strengthen your self-regulation efficacy, leading to greater control over your life and a higher likelihood of achieving your goals.