Stage 4 · Lesson 2 of 6

The power of small wins

In their book "The Progress Principle", Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer studied the daily diaries of knowledge workers and found that making progress in meaningful work, even small progress, was one of the strongest boosts to motivation and mood on a given day.

Confidence works in a similar way: it is built from many small, finished things rather than a few big moments. Break large goals into pieces you can finish in a day or a week, and notice when you finish them. At the end of each day, write one thing you moved forward.

Common trapsetting goals so big, like "become confident" or "get into Google", that you can never feel you have made progress towards them.

A question to check yourself and an AI practice session come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with

CourseFree
Learning How to Learn (Coursera)
Deep Teaching Solutions on Coursera · Beginner
Practice and self-testing techniques that turn doubt about a skill into real skill

Practise

VIA Character Strengths Survey
A free survey that ranks your 24 character strengths, to look for in your own life

Keep handy

Notion
A simple place to keep your evidence file, ladder and feedback notes

Also worth your time

Atomic Habits (James Clear)ReadPaid
How small actions, repeated, add up to real change and a new sense of who you are

Struggling right now? If you are in danger or thinking about harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line: Find a helpline (any country), Umang (Pakistan), Tele-MANAS, 14416 (India).