The theory of self-persuasion postulates that people participate actively in persuading themselves to change their behaviour or outlook. Unlike direct persuasion, self-persuasion is an indirect technique of placing people in circumstances where they get motivated to convince themselves to change. Under these circumstances, there is no direct attempt to influence anybody of anything but people are persuaded that the inspiration for change has come from inside and any other person’s influence is immaterial.
Self-persuasion is considered as a stronger form of persuasion than the other traditional opinion techniques. This technique works for improving students’ academic achievement across disciplines as well. Often, students’ ability to perform at academics comes from their knowledge and quality of written expression. Many students who lack essay writing skills can benefit from self‐persuasion in the writing process. This approach can prove valuable in enhancing the writing skills of struggling learners.
Self-persuasion has been found to be good enough for changing self-perception in a good way. Accurate self-perception allows you to become aware of your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, etc. Recognizing these aspects of your personality gives you the courage to defend yourself and ask for help when you need.
Considering the pressure the students undergo during their learning years, it becomes imperative to practice self-persuasion. Usually, problems arise from feelings or misunderstandings that lead you to wrong conclusions. You start dwelling on your mistakes but forget when you got it right. These internal fallacies and apprehension in your abilities make you believe that you are good for nothing and never will be. However, you need to take a logical leap and initiate the process to knowing the truth.
Here is how you can use self-persuasion to make the necessary changes and improve your overall performance:
Begin with a self-assessment
The first step in changing your negative perception through self-persuasion is to discover how you perceive yourself. You need to write your strengths and weaknesses on a paper. This exercise will force you to take a sincere look at yourself. By identifying all the things that you are bad at, you are simultaneously discovering things that you are good at. You might be able to change some of the weaknesses by working on them over the course of time. For instance, if writing is your weakness but you have excellent researching skills, you should value your strength and motivate yourself to overcome your writing fears. Self-persuasion will empower you to look overcome your writing flaws by seeking help from assignment writers who are good at it.
Take feedback from others
Seeking feedback from others will help in this process of self-persuasion. Other people’s feedback has the power to confirm or negate how you perceive yourselves. If you think you’re not a good writer but your teacher disagrees, you might want to change your opinion. So, you need to seek outside input if you want to change your self-perception. There are a few tips to get honest feedback from others. Not everybody is absolutely forthright when you request an opinion but you can draw out the honest inputs by:
Reading Between the Lines : When you get feedback, try to focus on what wasn’t said and not what was said. Some people will avoid telling a few things but might advise you indirectly. See to it that you actually use their advice and modify your opinion.
Pull out honest responses slowly : Some people need to be encouraged in order to present their straightforward opinion about you. If you can assure that you’ll be fine with their remarks, however harsh they may be, people tend to reveal what they genuinely feel about you.
Once you receive feedback, be prepared to accept it, even if it’s uncomfortable. When this acceptance to work on your behaviour comes from within, it will persuade you to further improve yourself.
Follow the behaviour of others
The way you perceive yourself affects how you conduct yourself. This works in reverse too. If you maintain a powerful body language and feel more confident despite being unsure of the outcome, chances are that the result will be positive for you. If you deliberately start searching for the decent in something, you may actually find it.
In practice, it can be something as simple as writing an essay. If you don’t feel very confident about it, try working out the solution. Write a piece that you think is more close to your frame of mind. Gradually move to other topics as you start to feel confident to handle topics that earlier seemed more challenging. You can look up other people’s work to get a perception of how they approach a topic. The more you try to follow the behaviour of confident and great writers, the more you’ll start feeling confident about your work.
Step out of your comfort zone
Feedback from others is one way to realize your capabilities. Another faster way of doing the same is to actually perform it. If you don’t think you are a good writer, then prove yourself wrong by writing a great piece. Of course, you have to maintain a realistic approach towards what your capabilities are but, add some optimism to that and things could really work out alright. In other words, if you understand the risks but still choose to be optimistic about the outcome, you will not only perform better but be happier too. Start by writing small segments and work your way to complex topics by persuading yourself to believe in your capabilities.
All said and done, it is probably impossible to ever be perfect, unless you are a fan of self-delusion. However, a lot of us spend years without reaching our potential or even trying new things just because we haven’t been able to perceive ourselves as capable of attempting them. We start living with flaws and accept those problems without making an effort to rectify them. If you think you can’t write a great essay or you simply lack self-confidence, the trouble might be in your perception and not your situation. Your ideas can determine the way you lead your life, so it’s better to not leave them to fate.