Are You a Confident Walker? (The Science Behind Consistency)

In this episode of Why Walking Matters: The Science Explained, we explore what it really means to be a confident walker—and why confidence may matter more than motivation when it comes to staying consistent. Learn how belief in your ability to walk regularly can shape your habits, and how small, simple steps can help you build lasting confidence and make walking part of who you are.

Links to sources used in this episode:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-efficacy.html

https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/research/constructs/self-efficacy

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32190284/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1574662/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20375127/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-014-9271-0

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Why Walking Matters The Science Explained. I am Tatiana, your host. Let me ask you a simple question. Are you a confident walker? In the last episode, we talked about walking and menopause, how something as simple as walking can support your body through a major life transition. We talked about hormones, health, and how consistent movement can make a real difference. And in the episode before that, we talked about walking form, how small changes in posture, stride, and movement can make walking feel easier and more natural. And that's important because when something feels better, you're more likely to keep doing it. Because none of the benefits of walking matter if it doesn't feel doable in your everyday life. As we start the new month, it's always a natural reset point, a chance to rethink routines, build better habits, and maybe approach things a little differently. So today I want to shift the focus. Not just talk about how you walk, but how you feel about walking. Because the real question isn't just whether you walk, it's whether you see yourself as someone who can walk consistently, comfortably, and confidently. So let's talk about what it actually means to be a confident walker and why that might matter more than anything else. So listeners, are you someone who walks occasionally? Or are you someone who feels comfortable, consistent, and capable walking anywhere at any time? Because here's the truth, walking isn't just physical, it's psychological. And one of the biggest factors that determines whether you'll stick with walking long term isn't motivation. It's confidence. So what is a confident walker? A confident walker isn't necessarily fast. They're not necessarily athletic. A confident walker is someone who walks regularly without overthinking it, who feels physically comfortable, who isn't intimidated by distance or pace, and who trusts their body. In psychology, this concept is called self-efficacy, your belief in your ability to perform a specific behavior. According to the National Cancer Institute, self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of whether people start and maintain health behaviors. Here's an excerpt from the study. Self-efficacy pertains to a sense of control over one's environment and behavior. Self-efficacy beliefs are cognitions that determine whether health behavior change will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long it will be sustained in the face of obstacles and failures. Self-efficacy influences the effort one puts forth to change risk behavior and the persistence to continue striving despite barriers and setbacks that may undermine motivation. Self-efficacy is directly related to health behavior, but it also affects health behaviors indirectly through its impact on goals. Self-efficacy influences the challenges that people take on as well as how high they set their goals. Individuals with strong self-efficacy select more challenging goals. They focus on opportunities, not on obstacles. From simply psychology.org, the term self-efficacy was first coined by psychologist Albert Bandura, nineteen seventy seven, a Canadian American psychologist and a professor at Stanford University. He originally proposed the concept in his own words as a personal judgment of how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations. To put in more simple terms, self-efficacy is a person's belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. How does self-efficacy influence behavior? Perceived self-efficacy significantly influences behavior in several ways. It affects whether people will even attempt to cope with a situation as they tend to avoid perceived threats that exceed their coping skills and engage confidently in situations they feel capable of handling. Self-efficacy also impacts thought patterns and emotional reactions. Those with low self-efficacy may dwell on deficiencies and magnify potential difficulties leading to stress and impaired performance. Conversely, individuals with high self-efficacy focus their attention and effort on the task demands, seeing obstacles as challenges that spur greater effort. Furthermore, self-efficacy plays a role in self-regulation, determining how much effort is expended, how long someone perseveres in the face of difficulties, and their resilience to setbacks. People with strong self-efficacy tend to embrace difficult tasks as opportunities to learn, recover quickly from setbacks, attribute failure to insufficient effort or poor strategy, things they can change, have lower stress, and are less likely to develop depression. People with low self-efficacy tend to avoid challenging tasks or give up easily, focus on weaknesses and negative outcomes, believe failures are due to lack of ability, a fixed trait, and experience higher stress and are more vulnerable to depression. Bandura identified four main sources of self-efficacy. One, performance outcomes or mastery experiences. Successfully mastering tasks is the most powerful source of self-efficacy information. Experiencing success strengthens beliefs in one's capabilities, while repeated failures tend to undermine them. two, vicarious experiences. Observing others, models, perform tasks successfully can raise observers' beliefs in their own ability to perform the same tasks, especially if they perceive the model as similar to themselves. three verbal persuasion Being told by others that one possesses the capabilities to succeed can enhance self-efficacy. However, the persuasiveness of this source depends on the credibility, expertise, and trustworthiness of the persuader. And four, physiological and emotional arousal. Physiological states such as anxiety or stress can influence perceived self-efficacy. High arousal in threatening situations is often interpreted as an indicator of vulnerability, which can lower self-efficacy. Conversely, managing and reducing stress can enhance efficacy beliefs. The strongest factor shaping your belief in your abilities, self-efficacy, is mastery experience. A mastery experience happens when you successfully take on a new challenge or accomplish something difficult, giving you direct proof of your capability. Why are these experiences so powerful? Because nothing convinces you of your own skills quite like achieving something firsthand. Each success, especially when you've overcome something that previously felt challenging or intimidating, boosts your confidence and strengthens your belief in what you're capable of doing. Of course, not every experience ends in immediate success. Early setbacks or failures can sometimes damage your self-efficacy, especially if you haven't yet built a solid foundation of confidence. However, failure isn't always negative. When you push through initial setbacks and eventually succeed, those victories are especially rewarding, showing you clearly that perseverance pays off. In fact, successfully navigating setbacks can lead to even stronger self-belief than never facing difficulty at all. People who persist through challenges develop a resilient type of self-efficacy, one that's powerful enough to withstand future setbacks and difficulties. Practice is crucial because it's the clearest path to mastery. But why does practicing work so effectively? When you practice regularly, you're not only improving skills, you're continually proving to yourself, often without even realizing it, that you have what it takes to succeed. Each successful practice reinforces your self-belief, creating a positive cycle of growing confidence. In short, mastery experiences, personal achievements gained through effort and perseverance offer the most reliable and powerful evidence of your true capabilities. They're more convincing than simply watching others succeed or receiving encouragement from others because they show you firsthand exactly what you can achieve. So to summarize, listeners, self-efficacy refers to a person's belief in their ability to successfully perform specific tasks or behavior. It plays a central role in how people think, feel, and act, affecting motivation, resilience, and persistence. High self-efficacy leads individuals to take on challenges, recover from setbacks, and stay committed, while low self-efficacy can result in avoidance and self-doubt. It is shaped by experiences such as past successes, observing others, encouragement, and emotional states, and it's a key factor in behavior change and habit formation. So this idea of self-efficacy, your belief in your ability to do something, is incredibly powerful because it helps explain something that a lot of people get wrong about building habits like walking. We tend to think the key is motivation, that if we just felt more motivated, we'd be more consistent. But that's not really how behavior works. Motivation comes and goes, it's unreliable. Confidence, your belief that you can do something, even on the days you don't feel like it, that's what actually keeps you going. When you believe you can go for a walk, you're much more likely to do it. And when you don't have that confidence, even small barriers can stop you. So it's not about waiting to feel motivated, it's about building the kind of confidence that makes walking feel like something you're capable of doing no matter what. Research shows that people are far more likely to stick with exercise when they believe they can do it consistently. In fact, one study found that self-efficacy and walking ability explained a large proportion of whether people adhered to a walking program. From PubMed. For this exploratory study, exercise adherence was measured using the first question of the first section of the exercise preference questionnaire. Nine independent variables were included as potential predictors of exercise adherence, the seven factors of the EPQ Stroke Brazil walking speed and level of physical activity. Results participated 93 individuals with stroke who had a mean age of 62 and a mean time since the onset of the stroke of 58 months. The most preferable exercise was walking. Logistic regression analysis revealed that self-efficacy to engage in physical exercise and walking ability predicted and explained 80% of the variance in exercise adherence. Conclusion The findings showed that feeling able to perform physical exercise and having higher walking ability predicted higher exercise adherences in individuals with chronic stroke. In other words, listeners, if walking feels doable, you'll keep doing it. If it feels uncertain, you won't. So are there signs that you're not a confident walker? You might not think about walking in terms of confidence, but it shows up in subtle ways. You might overthink your pace, worry about how you look, or stop after missing a few days. You might only walk when conditions are perfect, or you might feel insecure or unsure about distance or time. Research has shown that people who are less active tend to have lower confidence in their ability to exercise while regular exercisers have higher confidence. Here's where it gets interesting. Confidence isn't something you wait for, it's something you build. Studies show that higher self-efficacy is associated with better walking performance and it works in a loop. You walk, you feel more capable, your confidence increases, you walk more. From PubMed, the objective of this study was to determine the association of self-efficacy with walking ability in individuals with diabetes mellitus and peripheral artery disease. In this cross-sectional study, baseline data were analyzed from individuals with diabetes mellitus type 1 or 2 and peripheral artery disease who were enrolled in a walking intervention clinical trial. As part of the baseline assessment, individuals completed questionnaires to ascertain self-efficacy and coexisting illnesses. In addition, participants completed a treadmill walking test and a six-minute walking test. A total of 145 individuals were enrolled, mean age 66.5, with diabetes, mellitus, and peripheral artery disease. 45 were women. The mean distance walked as per the treadmill walking test was 418 meters, and the mean distance walked as per the six-minute walking test was 272 meters. As measured by the treadmill walking test and the six-minute walking test, self-efficacy was associated with treadmill walking distance and the six-minute walking test after adjusting for comorbidities, social habits, and disease severity. In conclusion, self-efficacy, a psychosocial mediator for behavior change, was significantly associated with walking ability in individuals with diabetes mellitus and peripheral artery disease. This, listeners, is the confidence loop. This is how walking becomes part of your identity. What actually builds walking confidence? It comes from doing something repeatedly and successfully. Here's what builds it. One, consistency. The more often you walk, the more normal it feels. Two, physical comfort, good form, a comfortable pace, and proper shoes reduce friction. Three, familiarity. Knowing your roots and distances removes uncertainty. Four small wins. Short, achievable walks build momentum. Research shows that even small amounts of successful practice can increase confidence in physical activity. From link.springer.com, this study investigated whether imaging a brisk walk once a day over a week could increase barrier self-efficacy among women who wanted to increase their exercise behavior. Participants with a mean age of 31.9 were randomly allocated to either an imagery rehearsal group or a control group. The four-minute, ten-second, guided imagery script was designed to tap several sources of self-efficacy. The participants completed the barrier self-efficacy scale before and after the intervention. Scores increased significantly for the rehearsal group, but not for the control group, but these changes were no longer significant after controlling for pre-exercise levels. Results show preliminary evidence that imagery can be used by women to increase their barrier self-efficacy, which in turn may increase the likelihood of successful exercise adherence. That's amazing, listeners. Even imagining a daily brisk walk for one week could boost confidence in overcoming exercise barriers. The most important part in all of this is the identity shift. The difference between saying I'm trying to walk more and I'm someone who walks. That shift from effort to identity is what makes habit stick. And confidence is what makes that identity believable. You don't need a complicated Plan. Start by walking for ten to fifteen minutes most days. Keep your pace comfortable, track your progress, and gradually increase over time. The goal is to make walking feel normal. So, listeners, you don't become a confident walker by waiting to feel ready. You become one by walking again and again until it feels like part of who you are. Because the real secret to walking consistently isn't motivation, it's believing you can. And the best way to build that belief is to take the next step. Walking isn't just physical, it's psychological. And the real barrier isn't time, fitness, or knowledge. It's do I feel like someone who can do this consistently? Confidence, self-efficacy, drives exercise behavior. Confidence predicts consistency. Confidence is linked to walking ability. Confidence determines whether people even start, and confidence increases through practice. Thanks for joining me again this week, listeners. And remember, if you're enjoying this podcast, be kind, share with a friend. And as always, links to all sources used in this episode can be found in the podcast description or show notes. And don't forget, I look forward to hearing your walking story at whywalking matters.com or check out our Instagram page, why underscore walking underscore matters. Until next time, listeners, happy walking.