go a long/some way towards doing something
(redirected from go a long way towards doing something)go a long way toward (something)
To be very helpful in achieving some goal. Don't do anything rash—patience will go a long way toward bringing you allies in this situation.
go a long way toward
Have considerable effect or influence on. For example, This argument goes a long way toward proving the scientists are wrong, or, as Eudora Welty put it in The Ponder Heart (1954): "It went a long way toward making him touchy about what Uncle Daniel had gone and done." This idiom, then put as go a great way toward, was first recorded in 1697.