Start Small and Stack Wins (Rebuilding Self-Esteem in Speaking)
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Asked what to do about confidence that blocks opportunities and connection, Aliénor rejects the popular 'do something terrifying' challenge culture. Her mistake in her own socially anxious phase was expecting to do everything an extrovert could with the same ease, which set the bar at things like sending a dish back in a restaurant, an act she describes as the end of the world. The alternative is a deliberate ladder: pick one tiny change you can make in your day, execute it with turned-up conviction, nail it, log the evidence, then repeat and add one more element. Progress comes from accumulating small, successful, evidenced reps rather than surviving one traumatic exposure. Structured feedback, from friends or a low-risk practice club, supplies the external evidence your own self-talk won't.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Drop the extrovert benchmark
Stop measuring yourself against what confident people around you do effortlessly. Expecting to match their ease is the mistake that makes the first rung of the ladder impossibly high.
Watch out The 'ask a stranger for a hundred dollars' style challenges circulating online set exactly this bar. Skip them.
- 2
Choose one tiny change for your day
Pick a single, specific, small act inside a situation you're already in. Aliénor's example: use one summary prompt at the end of your morning briefing with your boss, saying 'the one thing I did this week that's the most important is...'.
Pro tip Specify the sentence and the moment in advance so there's no decision left to make when the moment arrives.
- 3
Execute it with conviction turned up
Deliver the small thing with more belief and energy than feels natural, and nail it. Conviction is not aggression aimed at anyone, it's more certainty in what you're saying, and most people are far too far down the scale.
Pro tip If you overshoot, a short message afterwards fixes it and you'll be forgiven. The line is almost always further out than you think.
- 4
Pat yourself on the back and record the evidence
Immediately after speaking, make it a mental framework to note what you did well, and look at the evidence for how well it went. Judge the bad parts afterwards if you want, but the good has to be recorded first.
Pro tip Write it down. Evidence you can re-read outlasts a feeling you'll have overwritten by evening.
Watch out Skipping this step is what makes the whole ladder collapse; without logged wins you have nothing to stand on for the next rung.
- 5
Repeat, then add one more element
Run the same small thing again, then add something to it, then again with another addition. Work up slowly, a little bit every day, rather than jumping.
Pro tip Commitment devices help: raise your hand before you know what you're going to say, so you're forced to speak.
- 6
Get external evidence and low-risk reps
Ask close friends what they like about you and what your strengths are, and join somewhere separate from your life, such as a speaking club, where the whole point is practice, feedback and encouragement. Real-world stakes with people you care about make experimentation feel too expensive.
Pro tip Aliénor says a large part of coaching is simply reflecting back what she sees, because nobody in ordinary life ever tells you how you come across.
Watch out You do need the reps. Feeling the difference and being rewarded for it enough times is what buys the confidence to do it in the real world.
In the wild
Someone who freezes in meetings picks one rung: at the end of the weekly briefing with their boss they will say 'so the one thing I did this week that's the most important is...' and deliver it with conviction. It takes eight seconds. They nail it, note that it landed, and repeat it the following week, this time adding a follow-up question. Within a month the meeting contribution has grown by accumulation rather than by a single terrifying leap.
→ A repeatable weekly rep that compounds into visible contribution, with no traumatic exposure required.
Sitting in a restaurant with her mother, Aliénor is served a dish she didn't order. Her mother offers to call the waiter over and send it back. For someone struggling with shyness, she says, that is basically the end of the world; she would rather crawl into the ground or sprint out of the restaurant. The point isn't that she should have forced herself to do it that day. It's that this was never the right starting rung, and treating it as the test of progress is what keeps people stuck.
→ Recognising which challenges are far above your current rung, and building up to them instead.
Common mistakes
Starting with the terrifying challenge
Big exposure challenges from the internet tend to produce a traumatic experience rather than a win, which sets you back rather than forward. Small and nailed beats large and survived.
Skipping the pat on the back
If you only ever audit what went badly, the ladder has no rungs. Deliberately noting what you did well is what turns a rep into evidence you can build on.
Practising only where it's already comfortable
Reps in a domain you're already relaxed in don't move the needle. The reps need mild pressure and feedback, which is why a separate low-risk practice environment is worth finding.
From the transcript
“every time that you speak make it a mental framework to Pat yourself on the back”
“start small start with one tiny little change that you can make in your day and nail it”
“just work up there slowly a little bit every day rather than like trying to do something terrifying and it being a traumatic experience”
From the episode
5 Powerful Habits To Build Unshakeable Confidence - Aliénor Hunter (Ultraspeaking)
Aliénor Hunter (Ultraspeaking)