work up to

To slowly prepare yourself to do something difficult or scary.

"She had been working up to asking for a pay rise for months before she finally knocked on her manager's door."

Hear it in context

Keith Sivera | Keep Hammering Collective | Episode 185

Cameron Hanes · 51:04

Um work up to that.

Google Cloud Live: Next ‘26 Developer keynote deep dive

Google Cloud Tech · 135:47

I can work up to it.

3D Graphics: Crash Course Computer Science #27

CrashCourse · 5:23

and then increasingly work up to foreground elements.

Learn English in 3 Hours - ALL You Need to Speak English

Learn English with EnglishClass101.com · 116:46

kind of try to work up to saying it

I cut my training by 70% (and got better results)

Matt D'Avella · 28:47

a finite finishing point of where to work up to.

See more examples →