How to Make a Difference, Part 2: Learning to Believe That What We Do Matters

If agency can be diminished, can we learn to strengthen it?

In Part 1 of this series, I explored Martin Seligman's work on learned helplessness and the ways our explanations for adversity can influence what we do next. If we repeatedly experience situations in which our actions don't seem to matter, we may eventually stop trying—even when opportunities for change appear. But there is another side to that story. What if our sense of agency can be rewired, so to speak? What if it is something we can develop?

That is the question at the heart of Part 2 of Hidden Brain’s How to Make a Difference. Seligman presents agency—the belief that we can influence our circumstances and create change through our choices and actions—as a skill we can strengthen, and he explores some surprisingly practical ways to develop it.

This series of podcasts kept me thinking about the work I do as an integrative health and wellness coach because so much of coaching is ultimately about helping people rediscover possibility.

Our discouraging thoughts aren't necessarily facts

Think about the last time you had a discouraging thought. This isn't going to work. I'm not cut out for this. It's too late. I always do this. There's nothing I can do. How quickly do we assume that because a thought appeared in our minds, it must be true?

Seligman suggests that our automatic thoughts can be viewed more like hypotheses than facts. In particular, he talks about the human tendency to catastrophize—to immediately imagine the worst possible interpretation of an uncertain situation.

Imagine receiving a message from your manager: Please come see me at 4:00. The catastrophic brain can quickly fill in the blanks: I'm going to be fired.

Seligman's exercise is simple but powerful. First, imagine the worst possible outcome. Then imagine the best possible outcome. Finally, ask what is most realistically likely to happen.

The goal isn't to convince yourself that everything will be wonderful. It's to create enough space to recognize that your first interpretation may not be the only interpretation.

That is an important distinction. A thought can make sense given our experiences without necessarily reflecting reality. A fear can feel very real without accurately predicting what will happen. And just because a thought arises automatically doesn't mean we have to act on it.

Sometimes agency begins with one small step

One of my favorite parts of the episode was Seligman's discussion of small wins. When we're overwhelmed, we often think in exaggerated terms: I need to get my life together. I need to get healthy. I need to find a new job. I need to fix this relationship. But sometimes the size of the goal itself becomes paralyzing.

Seligman describes starting “absurdly small.” His example is a person who is depressed and overwhelmed by a messy kitchen. Rather than trying to clean the entire kitchen, the person starts by washing one cup.

One cup.

That may seem almost ridiculously small. But something important has happened: I chose to do something, and I did it.

That experience can become the foundation for the next action. And then the next.

This is the idea behind graded tasks—breaking something difficult into manageable steps, or SMART goals, and gradually increasing the challenge. The podcast describes research in which graded task assignments increased activity and reduced depression among hospitalized patients.

I see a similar principle in coaching. Sometimes the question isn't, How am I going to change my life? It is, What is one thing I can do today?

Agency doesn't always arrive as a dramatic surge of confidence. Sometimes it begins with one small action that gives us evidence that we still have influence.

We can practice a different explanation

Part 1 of this series explored explanatory style. Part 2 takes that idea a step further. When something goes wrong, we can practice questioning the automatic story that follows.

Instead of I failed, so I'm a failure, could we say, That didn't go the way I hoped. What can I learn from it?

Instead of This will always be this way, could we ask, What evidence do I have that this is permanent?

Instead of Everything is falling apart, could we ask, What specifically is difficult right now? What is still working?

This isn't positive thinking. It's more accurate thinking. And sometimes accuracy gives us more room to act.

Seligman describes a growth mindset in similar terms - where failure is understood as temporary and local rather than permanent and pervasive. The stories we tell ourselves can either expand or shrink the range of possibilities we see.

What if you used more of what you're already good at?

Another idea from the episode that I particularly liked was the use of signature strengths.

Seligman tells the story of a student who disliked her job as a waitress. After identifying social intelligence as one of her strongest qualities, she intentionally used that strength in her work. She decided to make each customer's interaction with her the social highlight of their evening and her job satisfaction increased.

The job itself hadn't changed, but her relationship to the job had. And that changed her experience of it.

This made me think about how often we assume that becoming more agentic means fixing what is wrong with us. What if sometimes it means using more of what is already right with us?

What are your natural strengths? What comes relatively easily to you? What do people tend to come to you for? When do you feel most engaged? And where might those strengths be useful in a situation that currently feels difficult?

Agency isn't necessarily about pushing harder. Sometimes it is about working with the strengths we already possess.

Imagination matters, too

Seligman identifies three components of agency: efficacy, optimism, and imagination. Simply put, efficacy is believing, I can do this now. Optimism is believing, I can do this in the future. And imagination is the ability to envision a broader range of possibilities.

That third component really stayed with me.

When we are discouraged, our imagination can become constricted. We may see only one path forward. If that path closes, we conclude that there is nowhere to go. But what if the future contains possibilities we simply cannot see yet?

Seligman discusses practices such as writing about our best possible future and learning from people who have encountered obstacles and found creative ways forward.

I think this is particularly relevant during times of transition. Sometimes we don't need to know exactly where we're going. We need to remain open to the possibility that there may be multiple possible destinations and more  than one way to get to each one.

Agency has a shadow side

There is an important caution in this conversation that I don't want to overlook. Agency is powerful, but it should never become another way of blaming people for circumstances they genuinely cannot control.

Seligman acknowledges that oppression, helplessness, and real constraints exist. Not everyone has the same choices, resources, safety, or opportunities.

That matters.

Agency does not mean everything is up to you. It means becoming more aware of what is within your influence. Sometimes that space is large. Sometimes it is very small. But even a small amount of choice can matter.

What might one small step look like for you?

As I listened to this episode, I found myself thinking about the many ways people come into coaching feeling as though they are standing at a crossroads with no good options.

Sometimes they need to understand the story they've been telling themselves. Sometimes they need to separate what they can control from what they cannot. Sometimes they need to reconnect with a strength they've forgotten. Sometimes they need permission to imagine something they haven't allowed themselves to imagine. And sometimes they simply need to take one small step.

So perhaps the questions to carry with you are these: What discouraging thought have I been treating as a fact? What else might be true? What is one thing I can influence today? What is one small action I could take? What strength do I already have that I could use differently? What possibility have I stopped imagining?

We don't get to choose everything that happens to us. We don't control other people. We can't eliminate uncertainty. And sometimes our choices really are limited. But within many circumstances, there is still a space for agency.

Maybe the goal isn't to become completely confident that we can change everything. Maybe it is simply to become curious about what we can change. And then take one small step.

One conversation. One different interpretation. One new possibility. One action that reminds us: What I do still matters.

That, to me, is one of the most hopeful messages in Seligman's work. Agency isn't necessarily something we either have or don't have. It is something we can practice and develop. And sometimes, change begins when we become willing to discover just how much possibility remains.

I invite you to visit Martin Seligman’s website to learn more about agency and take the VIA Character Strengths Survey. Identifying your personal strengths can help you discover new ways to build agency and recognize how you can use those strengths to make a meaningful difference in your own life.

Source Acknowledgment: This blog was inspired by psychologist Martin Seligman’s research on learned helplessness, optimism, and human agency, as discussed in the two-part Hidden Brain podcast series, How to Make a Difference. The reflections and coaching applications presented here are my own.