While everyone has their own personal reasons for working a personal spiritual practice, many consider developing self-efficacy one of its main purposes. First, let me state we are not talking about self-esteem here. Self-esteem has become extremely popular as something we need to develop or teach children to have; this has led to the proliferation of things like participation trophies and may have created a generation of people who are dependent upon the praise of others in order to feel good about themselves. Self-esteem is truly based on external sources of validation and can be considered situational at best. Everyone has days when they don’t like how they look or when they may have received criticism at work and felt inadequate as a result; this can be the result of using self-esteem as a measure of personal worth. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, depends upon internal sources for validation and personal acceptance. The best definition might be the quiet certainty that you are a capable individual who can accomplish things successfully. This is a small definition with large implications. You are the only one who can determine whether or not you have it; no one else can understand or critique what you consider competence. You are more likely to try new things, and you are not easily discouraged if what you attempt doesn’t work initially. You are also better able to adapt to those unexpected occurrences that are part of life itself. Because you are a magickal person, you have a much bigger arsenal of tools to use while living your life. You are able to use both the mundane and the magickal for problem solving and to improve your personal quality of life. At its heart, this is one of the main purposes of a spiritual practice and working to understand and develop self-efficacy furthers this purpose on a daily basis.