This is an extract from the Rosicrucian #89 (Aug, 2022)

Whatever ideas, ideals and ambitions you hold, one truth prevails: You have to start where you are and not where you would like to be. It’s so, so frustrating for those of us who like our visions big and our efforts small. Yet, the law holds as firmly as gravity and apples, or the one about resistance being matched by temptation. Luckily, as many writers have observed, you can invariably get ‘there’ from ‘here’, regardless of where ‘here’ and ‘there’ happen to be. The answer lies in many small actions toward the goal, one after another, persistently applying pressure, steadily, cumulatively and always in the general direction of ‘there.’ It’s the only foundation solid enough to support a castle in the air, and I call it the Power of One: one step at a time, many steps making the whole. Continuous pressure in a single direction can have amazing, even magical effects. Remember when the Grand Canyon was just a groove in a rock? You’ll find the rest of the story in the Akashic Records.

Important events happen around the globe almost daily. News bulletins tell us of momentous decisions by our movers and shakers, of breakthroughs in science, of the incubation of wars and the less well-heralded efforts to bring peace, of dastardly crimes and gross injustice, of secrets revealed and crises under development, etc. The great, the good, the hopeful and the downright seedy shape our world and set our agendas. Many of us have experienced feeling small and pathetic, controlled and coerced, swirled along by a deluge of work, or irritated like a blister on an ill-shod foot. We have felt acted upon rather than in charge, dutiful instead of joyous, careworn, not carefree, badgered, harassed, disappointed, helpless, forlorn, worried and trapped. But it’s open to any of us at any moment to take back the reins of this glorious vehicle we call life and start steering for ourselves.

What’s most important for the evolution of humankind is for you the very next thing you do. Yes, that’s you yourself personally, here in this moment in which you are reading these words. Perhaps there’s some great thing you can do today that could ripple into a momentous result the world over, like eradicating hunger or ending religious conflict. You may be working on a cure for cancer, a philosophy of world peace, a self-perpetuating water source to irrigate the deserts. If you have something of this sort in mind, do please make a start, remembering always that many great things are achieved little by little, rather than all at once, including, it would seem, the whole of creation, the Bang Maximus!

More likely you’ll seek some way of making your own life and that of your inner circle of friends and family in some way more pleasing, positive or fulfilling. Perhaps that improvement will feed into other people taking their lead from you, wanting what you have and taking steps to get it. You may be seeking to learn a new skill, harmonise relationships, build a fortune, move house, start a business, achieve enlightenment or play a part in saving the rainforests…, or all of the above. Whatever aims you have in mind, the only possible starting point is always here and the timing is always now. Lao Tzu, the Chinese sage and founder of the beautiful and mysterious philosophy of the Tao Te Ching (‘The Way’), penned it with breathtaking beauty and simplicity with the words:

A journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.

The scale of an ambition varies from person to person, depending on their individual starting point. A man from Leicestershire once ran 1,000 miles in 20 days, that’s 50 miles per day on average, or two marathon’s-worth at a time; of course not counting the extra time spent running to the corner shop once he’d set up camp, or taking detours to see the sights. His mother suffered from arthritis and once set herself a painful goal of walking 10 miles for charity. They both achieved what they had hoped for, but their perspectives were rather different.

Once someone has achieved an initial goal, the goalposts might well move further away. For someone who has run 1,000 miles, it might seem quite doable to walk 10,000 miles. A person who has slimmed from 30 stone to 15 might think nothing of losing the last couple of pounds to an ideal weight, while losing the first two of those pounds may well have seemed like fighting a pack of hungry wolves. The view from where you are as the new, improved you may enable you to fashion more ambitious dreams and bring those into being by means of the Power of One.

There are those who have made a science of improvement by manageable increments. One such school of thought favours the one per cent improvement, an approach made famous by David Brailsford when he was manager of the UK’s professional cycling squad, Team Sky. It calls for ‘the aggregation of marginal gains’, a one per cent improvement in everything you do. Brailsford looked for small improvements in every aspect of the team’s performance, from the ergonomics of the saddles to the use of pillows to optimise the competitors’ sleep, which were duly taken to hotels with them. He found ways to make minor improvements in everything from the training schedules to the hand-washing regime, so as to minimise the potential for infection.

Having aimed to win the Tour de France, the world’s toughest cycle race, in five years, team Brailsford did it in three, with Bradley Wiggins taking the yellow jersey in 2012 and later becoming a Sir. The team dominated the Olympic cycling events, winning an unprecedented haul of medals. In an article about the extraordinary success, behavioural scientist James Clear wrote:

So often we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it. Whether losing weight, building a business, travelling the world or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth shattering improvement that everyone will talk about. Meanwhile, improving just one percent isn’t notable (and sometimes isn’t even noticeable), but it can be just as meaningful, especially in the long run. (From jamesclear.com/marginal-gains)

The idea of small, sustained improvements has also been widely adopted in business, especially in the east. The Japanese car manufacturer Toyota long ago adopted the practice of kaizen (‘good change’), encouraging everyone in its workforce to participate in the quest for improvement in order to increase productivity and reduce waste and make suggestions to help the company to continually become a leaner, more efficient producer of top quality cars.

Bradley Wiggins

In business, expectations determine the standard set. There is an oft-quoted tale about the computer giant IBM ordering parts from a new supplier in Japan, stating that its acceptable level of quality allowed for 1.5% defects. The supplier duly sent the order with a letter beginning as follows:

Dear IBM, as we did not understand why you want 1.5% defective parts, we have, for your convenience, packaged them separately. (Quoted from Ron Lembke, University of Nevada)

While many people fall short of the vision, commitment or nerve to make major changes in their lives, almost everyone can make those marginal gains and start totting up to a life-enhancing switch toward something that steadily improves. We all have our starting points and our sticking points, the things we would like to improve and the reasons why we find it hard to do so and why we resist. After all, we have allowed these adversities to take shape in our personal world in the first place, whether they are bad habits, unpleasant feelings, negative conditions or limitations of any kind. It follows then that we also have the power to transform them into something more palatable.

The same power can be used to help others in need. Mother Teresa, who worked among the destitute and dying of Calcutta, knew the Power of One and applied it to her selfless mission to bring comfort to the poor. She said:

I can only love one person at a time, just one, one, one. So you begin.

and...

Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest to you.

The Power of One enables us to add something every day which is beneficial, or consistently take away something that is negative, setting up a new and better habit, fostering a more hopeful expectation, cutting a path through the undergrowth of restriction, bringing love into an empty life.

The Power of One can be used by anyone, anywhere, any time. It is part of the fertile power of the universe. By harnessing it you can transform your own state and that of others. You can take the Power of One, plant it in the rich soil of your life and grow it to a whole new level: One to the Power of Infinity.