Bird by bird, step by step, problem by problem
Solve one problem, then the next, then the next...
In The Martian, Mark Watney, stranded on Mars, faces an impossible situation. He has no way home, limited resources, and a planet completely hostile to human life. But instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of his situation, Watney (played by Matt Damon in the movie) famously decides to "science the shit out of this."
His approach? Don't solve the impossible problem of his survival all at once. Break it down. Solve one problem, then the next one, then the next. Until the impossible becomes possible.
Anne Lamott describes a similar approach to writing. In her book Bird by Bird, she describes the situation when her ten year old brother had procrastinated for months on a school report about birds that was due the next day. He sat at the kitchen table surrounded by unopened books on birds, frozen by panic and overwhelm at the massive task before him. Their father sat down beside him and gave him this simple advice: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
We've all been there! Heck, I'm still there on a weekly basis with seemingly impossible deadlines. And I use this lesson with my students regularly—PhD theses can be big overwhelming things in full—to help break the overwhelming into the manageable.
This lesson feels especially relevant in the context of the global polycrisis. Biodiversity loss, climate change, water scarcity. These crises are vast, urgent, and intertwined. It’s easy to feel paralysed by their scale, overwhelmed by their complexity, but also to wonder whether our actions will ever be worthwhile. Whether individual or incremental actions can ever make a difference. In an ideal world, we’d redesign our entire systems, whether political, economic, social, or environmental, to live in balance with nature and meet the challenges of the polycrisis. But sometimes the only way forward is the way Watney took: one problem at a time.
We're confronted with endless bad environmental news. We see footage of forests being cleared at unimaginable scales. We see the Great Barrier Reef dying. It's understandable that we’re overwhelmed. We're burnt out by the scale of the issues.
But Lamott reminds us that paralysis comes from trying to tackle too much at once. Progress, by contrast, comes from narrowing your focus to what’s right in front of you. Finish one thing. Then the next. Keep going.
Scaling the impossible
Consider ecological restoration. Restoring an entire catchment is overwhelming and often prohibitive. But reconnecting floodplain wetlands at a particular location? That’s one step. Reoperating dams to release functional river flows—those that mimic critical components of the natural flow regime? Another step. Each intervention may feel small, but cumulatively, they rebuild resilience. They rebuild ecosystems. And they set precedent for what’s to follow.
Think about water security. The global water crisis is an immense threat in a world with rapidly changing water cycles. This issue isn’t solved in a single stroke. But shifting one city’s approach to drinking water, improving one farm’s irrigation efficiency, or securing human rights for a single river—these steps add up. These steps compound. And before you know it major progress has occurred.
As I’ve previously mentioned, local biodiversity actions, guided by global objectives, can have major synergistic benefits for both biodiversity and climate challenges. And often, these involve incremental actions, because the path forward isn't always a single leap. Sometimes it's a careful sequence of small but deliberate steps.
The next, then the next...
Incremental progress is often mistaken for inaction. Yes, massive interventions matter and feel necessary right now, but, like I said in my previous post about the paradox of patient urgency, incremental changes compound over time. Every complex system is more than the sum of its component parts. Yet, we see the emergent properties of a system—the large-scale things we can see—and want to act on that scale. In reality, the real action, the real change, occurs at the smaller scales. The pieces operating on these smaller scales combine to form the emergent properties of the system.
In this light, success isn’t about an immediate, grand fix. Instead, it’s about stacking solutions until tipping points emerge.
This perspective is echoed in the field of social transformation as well.
talks about this in her newsletter about quantum social change. Small social changes can have major impacts. So we need more than just large-scale policy shifts; we need changes in the way people value ecosystems, relate to nature, and see the future.The task, then, is to identify the next problem, the next step. What’s the most immediate leverage point? What’s solvable now that sets up the next move? The alternative—waiting for a perfect solution—means doing nothing.
Finding momentum
There's relief in this thinking. Yes, we need to make major inroads into tackling the global polycrisis, and we need to do this as rapidly as possible. But we can't let the enormity of these challenges paralyse us. We also need to move forward, step by step.
Watney didn’t sit in the dust and despair over his predicament. He got to work.
Bird by bird. Step by step. Problem by problem.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Would love to hear your thoughts!
I loved reading this, it’s easy to feel so crushed by what is happening in the world right now - let alone just trying to get by day to day! But this is such a good reminder. Thank you for this encouragement!
This is lovely: a recipe for anything in life worth achieving.