What Walking 100 Miles in July Taught Me About Goal Setting

If you follow my Instagram Stories, you know that I set a goal of walking 100 miles in July. And on July 30 at 7 am, I hit 100.1 miles.

Now I know it’s cliché to compare walking to writing but I’m going to do it anyway, so here we go.

Walking 100 miles in July in Alabama sounds like a terrible idea. Each day was marked with either an “excessive heat” warning or a severe thunderstorm. Not exactly ideal walking weather. So I had to be intentional and I had to have a backup plan.

I prefer walking outside as opposed to at the gym on the dreadmill, I mean, treadmill, but I do have a walking pad at home that I can turn to in a pinch.

As I continued to share my walks on Instagram people began to message me asking, “How are you walking in this heat?!”

They didn’t like my answer. I got up really, really early so that I was pounding the pavement by 6 am at the latest. Basically, I wanted to be out the door as soon as it was no longer dark outside so I could gett in my miles for the day before it got too hot. In order to walk first thing in the morning, I had to plan my day around my walk.

If you’re serious about writing, you’ll need to plan your day around it. I know I do my best writing in the morning, so when I was a teacher, I got up at 4 am so that I could write before I headed to school. Calm down. I’m not saying you need to wake up at 4 am but I am saying you need to plan when you’re going to write and stop just hoping it will happen.

Sometimes I woke up to a torrential downpour. On those days, I had to hop on the walking pad at some point during the day. I used that time to catch up on TV shows, watch a movie, or – most recently — watch the Olympics so it wouldn’t be miserable.

Here’s the thing: you can plan your writing time, but life can still happen and blow up your day. What’s your backup plan? If you wake up early to write but your kid is sick, could you write that evening before bed?

The most important lesson my 100-mile month taught me (or I should say the lesson it reiterated) is the power of focus. Too often I find myself going after several goals at once, and when I do this I usually don’t accomplish any of them. But when I’m laser-focused on one goal, I always slay it!

My August Goal

So as I enter August, I’m going into this month focused on one goal – which is to complete a business bootcamp I signed up for to help me expand See Jane Write.

I’ve encouraged the women of the See Jane Write Collective to also make this month “All-In August.” They too are going to go all in with one goal. If you need some inspiration, here are some of the things Collective members are focusing on this month:

Decide on focus for next book
Choose poems for chapbook
Write 200 to 300 words a day
Launch new book
Complete 4 blog posts

My 100-mile month reminded me of the power of accountability, too. Sharing my progress on my Instagram Stories really kept me motivated, so I plan to share updates on the business bootcamp in my Stories too. You can follow along @seejavaciawrite. And if you need accountability for your goal, join us in the See Jane Write Network Facebook group.