Chapter 10: A Journey Begins Beneath Your Feet

The Plan That Ended in a Pulled Muscle

Yerlan is forty-two and works as a sales manager for a company that makes building materials. For fifteen years, he has worked long hours, eaten quickly at his desk and rarely exercised. Last winter, after a check-up, his doctor told him that his health would benefit from more activity and a better diet, and suggested some gentle, gradual changes. Yerlan, who has always approached everything with great determination, decided to change his life completely.

On the first of January, Yerlan began a new programme. He would run every morning at six, go to the gym every evening, stop eating sugar, stop drinking coffee, lose ten kilos in three months and run a half marathon by the summer. He bought new running shoes, a gym membership, a scale and a large chart for the kitchen wall. On the first day, he ran five kilometres, although he had not run in years. On the second day, he ran five more. On the third day, he went to the gym after work and lifted heavy weights.

On the fifth day, Yerlan pulled a muscle in his leg so badly that he could hardly walk. He had to rest for three weeks. During those weeks, discouraged and in pain, he went back to eating at his desk and drinking coffee all day. By the time his leg had healed, his enthusiasm had gone. The chart on the kitchen wall was blank after the fourth day. He felt that he had failed, and he told his wife that he was simply not the kind of person who could change.

His wife reminded him of what the doctor had actually said: gentle, gradual changes. "You tried to climb the whole mountain on the first day," she said. "Why not just take one step?" She suggested that he start by walking for twenty minutes after dinner, three times a week. Yerlan felt this was almost embarrassingly small. But he was tired of failing, so he tried it.

Many people who try too hard approach change the way Yerlan did: all at once, with enormous effort, aiming for a dramatic transformation. And many, like Yerlan, end up exhausted, injured or discouraged, and give up. The Daodejing contains one of the most famous lines ever written about a different way of making great changes, and it is a line that people who try too hard particularly need to hear.

The Tree, the Tower and the Journey

In chapter 64 of the Daodejing, there is a passage that begins with three images. In my own words: a tree so thick that your arms cannot reach around it grows from a tiny shoot. A tower nine storeys high begins with a pile of earth. A journey of a thousand li, an old measure of distance, begins with what is beneath your feet (Daodejing, chapter 64). The last line is often translated as "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

These images are so familiar that it is easy to pass over them. But they contain a deep and practical truth. Every great thing begins small. The giant tree was once a shoot that could be crushed under a foot. The tall tower was once a heap of soil. The long journey is made of single steps, each one taken from wherever the traveller stands. There is no way to reach the end except by beginning where you are, with what is in front of you.

People who try too hard often forget this. They look at the size of the tree, the height of the tower and the length of the journey, and they try to reach the end in one great leap. They want to transform their health in a month, finish a huge project in a weekend or change their whole life overnight. The size of their goal makes small steps seem insignificant, even insulting. Like Yerlan, they feel that a twenty-minute walk is too small to matter.

But the Daodejing suggests that small steps are not a lesser way of reaching great goals. They are the only way. A tree does not grow by leaping. It grows a little each day, steadily, for years. A tower does not rise by magic. It rises one stone at a time. The traveller who tries to cover a thousand miles in a single day will collapse. The traveller who walks steadily, day after day, will arrive.

The same passage contains another line that speaks directly to people who try too hard. In my own words: people often fail when they are close to success. So be as careful at the end as at the beginning, and you will not fail (Daodejing, chapter 64). Great efforts often collapse not at the start but near the finish, when tiredness, impatience or overconfidence lead to mistakes. A steady pace, kept all the way to the end, protects against this.

Great Things Done While Small

Chapter 63 of the Daodejing, which comes just before, develops the same idea. In my own words: plan for what is difficult while it is still easy. Do what is great while it is still small. The difficult things of the world always begin as easy things, and the great things of the world always begin as small things. So the wise person never tries to do great things, and in this way great things are done (Daodejing, chapter 63).

This last sentence is a puzzle worth thinking about. How can someone achieve great things by never trying to do great things? The answer seems to be that the wise person attends to the small steps that make up great things, rather than straining toward the great thing itself. They do not think, "I must build a tower." They think, "I will lay this stone well." And stone by stone, the tower rises, without the strain and anxiety of constantly reaching for the top.

Chapter 63 adds a warning. In one common reading: a person who promises lightly will rarely be trusted, and a person who thinks everything is easy will find many difficulties. So the wise person treats things as difficult, and in the end finds no difficulty (Daodejing, chapter 63). This might seem to contradict the idea of small steps. But it does not. The wise person respects the size of the task. They do not pretend that a thousand miles is short. That is exactly why they take it one step at a time, steadily and carefully, rather than rushing.

Yerlan had made two mistakes that these chapters describe. He had tried to do something great all at once, rather than doing it while it was small. And he had treated a difficult task, changing years of habits, as if it were easy, something that could be done in one determined push. As a result, he found many difficulties: injury, discouragement and failure.

The approach the Daodejing suggests is gentler and more patient, and in the end more effective. Respect the size of the goal. Then forget about its size, and attend only to the step in front of you. Take that step well. Then take the next one. Keep a steady pace all the way to the end. And trust that, as with the tree and the tower, small and steady growth will in time become something great.

The Cicada Catcher

The Zhuangzi adds a story that shows what steady, small-step practice can achieve, and what kind of attention it requires. In chapter 19, Confucius was walking through a forest when he saw a man with a bent back catching cicadas with a long sticky pole. He caught them so easily that it looked as if he were simply picking them up with his hand. Confucius asked whether he had a special skill or a secret method (Zhuangzi, chapter 19).

The man explained that he had a method, and that it had taken him a long time to learn. For five or six months, he had practised balancing small balls on the end of his pole. When he could balance two balls without them falling, he missed only a few cicadas. When he could balance three, he missed only one in ten. When he could balance five, catching cicadas became as easy as picking them up (Zhuangzi, chapter 19).

Then he described his state of mind while catching. In my own words: I hold my body as still as a tree stump and my arm as still as a dry branch. However vast heaven and earth may be, and however many things there are in the world, I am aware only of the cicada's wings. I do not turn or waver. I would not exchange the cicada's wings for all the things in the world. How could I fail to catch them? Confucius turned to his students and said that this man's will was undivided and his spirit concentrated (Zhuangzi, chapter 19).

This story has two lessons for people who try too hard. The first is that great skill grows from small, patient practice: two balls, then three, then five, over many months. The cicada catcher did not try to become a master overnight. He practised one small skill until it was steady, then added a little more. This is the tree growing from a shoot, the tower rising from a pile of earth.

The second lesson is about attention. When the cicada catcher worked, he attended only to the cicada's wings, and to nothing else in the world. People who try too hard often attend to everything at once: the whole goal, all the obstacles, every possible problem, all the other things they should be doing. Their attention is scattered across the whole thousand miles. The cicada catcher's attention was gathered on the single step in front of him. That concentration, combined with patient practice, made his work look effortless.

Yerlan's Twenty Minutes

Yerlan began walking for twenty minutes after dinner, three times a week. At first, it felt pointless. Twenty minutes of walking was nothing compared with the half marathon he had dreamed of. But he kept going, partly because it was so easy that there was no reason not to. After a month, he noticed that he looked forward to the walks. They cleared his head after work. His wife sometimes joined him, and they talked in a way they had not for years.

After two months, Yerlan increased the walks to thirty minutes, five times a week. After four months, he began to jog for a few minutes during each walk. After six months, he was jogging for twenty minutes at a time. He also made small changes to his diet, one at a time: first, bringing a proper lunch to work instead of eating at his desk; then, reducing his coffee to three cups a day; then, adding more vegetables to dinner. Each change was small enough to keep.

A year later, Yerlan had lost weight, his health had improved, as his doctor confirmed, and he was jogging three times a week. He had not run a half marathon, and he was no longer sure he wanted to. But he had made more progress in one year of small steps than he could have imagined in his five days of dramatic effort. And, more importantly, he had built habits he could keep.

Yerlan says that the hardest part was accepting how small the first steps were. "I am someone who likes big goals and big efforts," he says. "Taking a twenty-minute walk felt like admitting defeat. But it was the first step of a thousand miles. The big effort lasted five days. The small steps have lasted a year, and they are still going."

Yerlan's story is a reminder that, especially for changes in health and daily habits, small steps are often more effective than dramatic transformations. If you are making changes to your health, it is wise to follow the guidance of a doctor or another qualified professional about what is safe and suitable for you, as Yerlan eventually did.

Nkechi and the Thesis

Nkechi is twenty-nine and is writing a long research thesis to complete an advanced degree in agricultural science. The thesis needs to be about eighty thousand words, based on three years of fieldwork. For months, Nkechi has been unable to start writing. Every time she sits down, she thinks about the whole thesis, all eighty thousand words, every chapter, every argument, every table. The size of it overwhelms her. She spends days reading and planning, but she does not write.

When she does try to write, she tries to write a whole chapter in one sitting. She stays up late, drinking coffee, forcing herself to keep going. She produces a few thousand words, feels exhausted and then cannot face the thesis again for a week. Her supervisor is becoming concerned, and Nkechi is becoming anxious.

A friend who had finished a similar thesis gave her some advice. "Do not write a thesis," she said. "Write five hundred words a day. That is all. Do not think about the thesis. Just write five hundred words, every day, and then stop." Nkechi thought this was far too slow. Five hundred words a day would take months. But her friend pointed out that months of steady writing would finish the thesis, while weeks of nothing followed by exhausted bursts would not.

Nkechi tried it. Each morning, she wrote five hundred words, about one page, and then stopped, even if she wanted to continue. Some days, it took an hour. Some days, it took three. But every day, she wrote her page. She stopped thinking about the whole thesis and attended only to the page in front of her, like the cicada catcher attending only to the wings. After a month, she had fifteen thousand words. After six months, she had a complete draft.

"I was trying to build the whole tower at once," Nkechi says. "It was too big, so I built nothing. When I started laying one stone a day, the tower began to rise." She also found that, as the Daodejing warns, she had to be careful near the end. When the draft was almost finished, she was tempted to rush the last chapters. She remembered the line about failing near success, slowed down and gave the final chapters the same care as the first.

Bogdan and His Mother's House

Bogdan is fifty-eight. His mother died last year at the age of eighty-nine, and he and his sister must now clear her house, where she lived for fifty years. The house is full: furniture, clothes, books, papers, photographs, kitchen equipment, decades of belongings. Every room holds memories. Bogdan lives a few hours away, works full time and has limited time to spend on the task.

The first time Bogdan visited the house after the funeral, he tried to clear it all in one weekend. He started in the kitchen, moved to the bedroom and then to the attic, opening boxes, sorting, deciding. By Saturday evening, he was exhausted and overwhelmed, both by the work and by the grief that each object stirred up. On Sunday, he sat in his mother's chair for hours, unable to do anything. He drove home feeling that he had failed.

His sister suggested a different approach. "Let us do one room each visit," she said. "Or even one cupboard. We do not need to finish quickly." They agreed to visit every two weeks and to clear one small area each time: the kitchen drawers, then the bathroom, then one wardrobe. They gave themselves time to look at photographs, to tell each other stories about their mother and to rest.

Clearing the house took eight months. But it was a different experience from that first weekend. Each visit was manageable. They had time to grieve as they went, rather than being overwhelmed. They made careful decisions about what to keep, what to give away and what to let go. And the slow process became, in a strange way, a gentle farewell to their mother. "One cupboard at a time," Bogdan says. "That is how we said goodbye."

Grief and large practical tasks often come together, and the combination can be overwhelming. Bogdan's story shows that small steps can help with both. If grief feels very heavy for a long time, or if it makes daily life very hard, it may help to talk with someone you trust, and to consider speaking with a doctor or another qualified professional.

Practical Steps: One Step at a Time

The first step is to respect the size of your goal, and then set it aside. Acknowledge honestly that what you want to do is large: a change of habits, a long project, a difficult task. Then stop looking at its whole size. Turn your attention to the first small step.

The second step is to make the first step small enough. Choose a step so small that it seems almost too easy: twenty minutes of walking, five hundred words, one cupboard. If a step feels daunting, make it smaller. The point is to begin, and to be able to keep going.

The third step is to be steady rather than heroic. Take your small step regularly, day after day or week after week. Steady small steps add up to far more than occasional heroic efforts followed by exhaustion. A tree grows a little every day, not a lot once a year.

The fourth step is to gather your attention on the step in front of you. Like the cicada catcher, attend only to the task at hand: this page, this walk, this drawer. When your mind jumps to the whole goal, or to all the other things you should be doing, gently bring it back to the single step.

The fifth step is to add a little at a time. When a small step has become easy and steady, add a little more, like the cicada catcher adding balls to his pole. Do not add too much at once. Let each new level become steady before you go further.

The sixth step is to be as careful at the end as at the beginning. As you near the end of a long effort, watch for the temptation to rush, to relax your care or to push harder in a final burst. Keep your steady pace. The Daodejing warns that people often fail when they are close to success.

Small Steps Are Not Small Ambitions

It is important to be clear that small steps do not mean small ambitions. The tree that grows from a shoot becomes enormous. The tower that rises from a pile of earth reaches nine storeys. The journey that begins with a single step covers a thousand miles. The Daodejing is not telling us to aim low. It is telling us how to reach high without breaking ourselves.

It is also worth recognizing that some situations do require a burst of effort: an emergency, a deadline that cannot move, a moment of opportunity. Small steps are the everyday pace, not a rule that forbids all bursts. But for most of the great tasks of life, such as building health, learning a skill, writing a long work, recovering from loss or changing a habit, steady small steps are wiser than dramatic leaps.

Finally, if you find that you cannot take even the smallest step, that every task feels impossible, however small, and that this has continued for a long time, please be gentle with yourself and consider talking to a doctor or another qualified professional. Sometimes the inability to begin is a sign of exhaustion or low mood that deserves care, not a lack of willpower.

A Short Exercise: The First Step Beneath Your Feet

This exercise helps you begin a large goal with a small step. It takes about fifteen minutes to plan, and then a few minutes each day.

At the top of a page, write a goal that you have been putting off because it feels too large, or that you have tried to reach before with a great effort that did not last. Write it as it is, in its full size. "Get fit." "Write my book." "Clear the garage." "Learn to play the guitar."

Below it, write the smallest step you can imagine that would move you toward this goal. Make it so small that you could do it today, even on a bad day. "Walk around the block." "Write one paragraph." "Clear one shelf." "Practise one chord for five minutes." If it still feels hard, make it smaller.

Then decide how often you will take this step: every day, three times a week, every Saturday. Make a simple chart with a box for each time, and put it somewhere you will see it. Each time you take the step, mark the box. Do not do more than the step, at least for the first two weeks, even if you feel like it. The aim is to build steadiness.

After two weeks, look at your chart. If the step has become easy and steady, add a little more, like the cicada catcher adding a ball. If it has not, keep the same step, or make it smaller. Continue in this way. Yerlan's first chart had "walk for twenty minutes after dinner" in three boxes a week. His wife drew a small tree in the corner of the chart. Each month, she added a branch. By the end of the year, the tree filled the corner.

Chapter Summary

In chapter 64, the Daodejing teaches that a tree too thick to embrace grows from a tiny shoot, a tower of nine storeys rises from a pile of earth and a journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet; it also warns that people often fail near success, so one should be as careful at the end as at the beginning. Chapter 63 advises doing great things while they are small and difficult things while they are easy, and observes that the wise person, by never straining toward great things, achieves them. In chapter 19 of the Zhuangzi, a cicada catcher reaches effortless skill through months of patient practice and attention gathered entirely on the cicada's wings.

Yerlan with his twenty-minute walks, Nkechi and her five hundred words a day and Bogdan clearing his mother's house one cupboard at a time all found that great goals reached through dramatic, exhausting effort tend to collapse, while small, steady, attentive steps carry us much further. Small steps are not small ambitions. They are the way to reach high without breaking ourselves.

In the next chapter, we will look at ambition itself, and at a story in which Zhuangzi was offered a high position and chose instead to be a turtle in the mud.