I am celebrating a big milestone today! With the completion of this blog post, I have written for 1000 consecutive days. If you are doing the math, thats 2 years, 8 months and 26 days of writing….and counting.
This is a huge accomplishment for me, beating my former record for number of consecutive days of writing. That old record was…four days. Yes. As in 1…2…3…4 days…quit.
This is how the journey unfolded.
In July of 2013, I attended a Keller Williams workshop in Kansas City, MO. The company founder, Gary Keller, spoke about doing the ONE thing. Sharing from his own experiences as an entrepreneur, he explained that it takes 66 days to create a new habit. Practicing that ONE thing daily is essential to forming a discipline.
Gary asked each of us to write down the ONE thing that we deeply desired to do, and then he encouraged us to commit to doing that thing daily, to create a new habit. I was at a workshop sponsored by the biggest real estate company in the US. I was, and am still, a realtor. I know many people wrote down real estate related goals to focus on mastering, one day, one step at a time.
Not me.
I wrote down Writing. That afternoon I committed myself to writing, every day, for the next 66 days. I had been contemplating the direction my life was going. And I felt ready to return to a former passion of mine. My desire was to create the discipline of daily writing.
I was excited. I was determined. I wrote for exactly four days. The problem was, I didn’t have a purpose for writing.
What I love about that experience was that in spite of my apparent failure, the desire to write every day had been acknowledged and the thought went out. The Divine responded.
A few months later my word for 2014 had been given to me – Beyond. With the word came the realization that I needed to focus on moving beyond my comfort zone. But how was I to do that?
I’ve shared many times how life works for me. I ask a question. I get an answer. Shortly after I asked about living in a beyond kind of way, I read online about Lu Ann Cahn, author of I Dare Me. Lu Ann’s book chronicled how she got out of a rut in her life, by experiencing something new every day for a year.
There! There it was! The way was shown to me, the path laid out before me, that would move me beyond my comfort zone. I bought and read Lu Ann’s book, and decided to have my own Year of Firsts. As 2013 wound down, I prepared to kick off the new year by doing things I’d never done before. It seemed natural to keep track of my daily firsts. The Going Beyond blog was launched, as a way of remembering what I had done and to ensure accountability.
At the end of 2014 I had experienced 365 new things AND I had written 365 blog posts. I wrote, every day. What I couldn’t do before, I was able to accomplish now because I had a purpose connected to the act of writing.
My Year of Firsts transitioned into a Year of Journeys and then flowed into a Year of Surrenders. And still, I am writing, every day. Writing has indeed become a habit, one that brings me great joy.
Along the way, I have made wonderful new friends, met other amazing writers and bloggers, and found my voice. I am excited about next year and the direction my writing is going. And it all began with the challenge to find the ONE thing that I most wanted to do…and committing to doing that ONE thing every day.
I am grateful to Gary Keller. And I am full of gratitude for the Divine for guiding me to the perfect manifestation of my desire. Here’s to the next 1000 days of writing.
