I am fearful of things I have never tried before.

There are many things I don’t know if I can do. However, not knowing feels better than knowing you can’t. Attempting something new is risky because failure could reduce confidence and make your life worse.

Confidence is fragile, and we ought to treat it with care.

The Power of Small Wins

Every time we attempt something, we generate evidence of how good we are at that thing.

If it goes well, we generate positive evidence and build confidence. If it goes poorly, the opposite happens. If we want to reliably build confidence, we need to give ourselves every chance of success, even if it means starting incredibly small.

The first attempt is especially important, as it will form 100% of our evidence base.

How to Set Yourself Up for Success and Reliably Build Confidence

Identify what you want to improve and make it as small as possible.

Make it so easy and so small that you can’t possibly fail. Say a single sentence. Write one line of code. Kick one football.

It might seem trivial, but after you have done this one simple thing, you have gone from a state of no evidence to positive evidence, and you’re on an upward journey to success.