Q & A with Dr. B.

Dr. Larry Berkelhammer

The purpose of this website, my book, and the Community Education course I teach at the College of Marin, is to teach people how to live a vibrant, meaningful life through the cultivation of self-empowerment and self-efficacy. In this weekly Q&A column, I post questions from students and from people who attend my presentations along with my answers.

Here is this week’s question:

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION: How do self-empowerment and self-efficacy help one to live a happier, less stressful life?

ANSWER:  When you empower yourself to pursue your goals and live according to what you value, you will feel in control of your life. That sense of control cannot be achieved by trying to control others or by trying to control situations.

The way it is achieved is by courageously making conscious choices every day to live by your personal values, despite feeling anxious or apprehensive. What happens is that you begin to increasingly achieve your goals, which then adds to self-efficacy. In other words, as you increasingly believe and trust that you can achieve your goals, you feel more in control, which is turn serves to dramatically reduce stress.

This website is offered as a free public service, supplying information that has been found helpful to certain people living with chronic health challenges or issues related to wellbeing. No treatment is offered on this website. The advice is general, and may or may not apply to your individual situation, and is not a substitute for psychotherapy or medical treatment.

If you would like to ask me something, you can type your question in the comment box below. An answer to your specific question may not necessarily appear in this column. The reason for that is I wait until I get a certain number of related questions, then I pick one that covers them all and I answer that one.