Great Things Are Done by a Series of Small Things: The Final Step in Building Confidence

💭 Go deeper: We talk more about this in episode #277 of the Joy Lab Podcast

There's so much pressure to be bolder. To think more ambitiously. And sometimes that's right. But if you're just starting to rebuild confidence, then the most important thing you can do is get really good at small committed actions.

Henry Emmons, MD explains why. When he's working with someone who has lost their confidence to depression, they don't start with ambitious goals. They start with getting out of bed. Taking a shower. Going for a walk. These sound trivially small. But each one is a small, committed action. Each action is moving toward something that matters. And after doing these small things daily, something shifts. Not because the depression is gone, but because the person now has evidence that they can take action and do hard things. That evidence is what builds confidence over time.

This is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy calls psychological flexibility: the ability to be present with thoughts, feelings, and sensations without letting them stop you from doing what's important to you. 

One of the most practical tools this episode offers is the shift from self-focused attention to task-focused attention. Self-focused attention is when you're in the middle of doing something, but your brain is busy assessing how you're being judged, picking apart your own performance, and worrying about whether people can see your shaky voice or the red patches spreading up your neck. It's really hard to take action amidst that self-focused attention.

What's happening neurologically, Henry explains, is that self-focused attention takes the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that handles complex tasks, creativity, and clear thinking) partially offline. Your brain's computing power gets redirected to self-monitoring and threat-detection instead of actually doing the thing. Shifting to task-focused attention can bring it back online.

The reset is simple: First, pause. Then, ask "What does this moment call for?" Then do the next best thing, imperfectly. You'll get pulled back into self-focus. That's okay. That's the practice. Every time you notice and bring your attention back, that's where the real strength comes from.

The goal isn't a perfectly focused state. It isn't certainty. It isn't the absence of self-doubt. It's the ongoing practice of showing up anyway, again and again, in the direction of what matters to you.

As Vincent van Gogh said: "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

Listen to this episode of the Joy Lab Podcast and start collecting the small evidence that you can do hard things.