I grew up in an abusive environment, and have dealt with the process of unwinding C-PTSD for much of my life (now mid 30s). The environment I escaped is the type of environment that books about learned helplessness (a concept at the center of modern therapy) are written about. I mention this only to add context to my personal experience, and to highlight that the mindset I had to escape was ingrained from the earliest age. In short, there was little to no "supporting the development of agency", and in most cases, the exact opposite was true.
The process of therapy, whether that's CBT, ACT, etc. are all about making incremental changes that eventually all combine to rewire how you think and/or act. The entire therapy journey consists of these kinds of small changes along with active processing of past events to free up mental capacity. I'm highlighting therapy here because the related disciplines have been studied extensively.
The same concepts apply in other contexts (and are common in fields like software). Outside of traditional methods of therapy, practices like mindfulness meditation have been studied quite a bit, and there is a growing body of research on its benefits [0]. In particular, it seems to lower friction for hard things by helping you see more clearly the reality of why you're struggling with doing things, and why not doing them is often worse in the long run.
> I would challenge that from the getgo.
To clarify, what are you challenging, specifically? The idea that small changes are easier to execute than large ones?
This has been the subject of deep exploration across many walks of life, and on the personal improvement front is at the center of books like Atomic Habits, which itself is based on a foundation of research. The reason small changes work is that we absorb them into our daily routines until they no longer require active thinking to accomplish.
Part of what happens is that you also start confronting the bad reasoning you've been using to justify not acting. Embarrassingly, I had to re-establish basic habits like brushing my teeth. Clarity through mindfulness led to the realization that avoiding the tiny annoyance of doing this each day would be far less painful than the eventual dental issues I would otherwise suffer. I always knew that, but pausing to actually think clearly is what turned that knowing into a deep realization.
- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation (linking to Wikipedia as a shortcut to the extensive references in the article if you're curious).