How I walked over 700 miles in less than 40 days.

Whether it’s finding your dream job, the perfect romantic partner, or accomplishing an everyday task, knowing when to daydream and when to focus can make all the difference in letting the magic happen.

Photo by Christopher Sardegna on Unsplash

Success is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, again and again, again.

I recently completed a pilgrimage where I walked from a small town in Geneva, Switzerland to Rome, Italy.

Yeah — you read that right… I walked.

A total of seven-HUNDRED and fourteen miles in 36 days. All by foot.

Did I mention I carried all of my belongings on my back?

Want to know the funny thing about all this?

I never fully committed to completing the pilgrimage. I bought my plane ticket and decided to go, one week before I started it.

I didn’t even commit to a place to lay my head every night. I just figured it all out when the time came. You see, I knew if I allowed my mind to time travel 30 (or even 40) days from right there in the present moment my insides would crumble with overwhelm.

So I quit my day job, and sold every last one of my belongings, including the bed I had been sleeping on, within the week. I took it one day, one minute at a time. I sold my car one hour before I left for the airport.

Completely uprooting my entire life, for an unknown future was kind of nuts. No job, no home, no car, and no one but me. My pilgrimage was the hardest mental and physical challenge I’ve ever endured.

Want to know the two words that changed my life forever, and kept me going on even the worst of days?

Here’s the best advice I’ve ever listened to:

Stay present.

Whatever you’re doing. Whatever you want to do. Start, and stay present.

Stop worrying about how everything needs to be perfect or how long it will take to be perfect. You have to start somewhere.

Not every moment will be great. There will be desperate times, calling for desperate measures. But a moment is only a moment. It doesn’t last forever. Every single moment is temporary.

By learning to stay present in even the sh*tiest of times, you’ll build your capacity to stay present. This makes the best of times feel like a weightless dance on cloud nine.

The fact of the matter is, you aren’t going to be happy 100% of the time. It’s practically guaranteed that if you put yourself out there enough times, you are going to get your heart broken, and you're going to fail.

The pain of walking 700 miles didn’t last forever. And neither will the empty bank account, the broken heart, or the unemployment title. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

As Stephen King said in his memoir On Writing, “the scariest moment is always just before you start”.

Here are some game-changers:

1. Stop making excuses. No more ‘I’m too busy’, ‘I have to do this first’, ‘it’s not perfect yet. Newsflash, you are never too busy and it will never be perfect.
2. Get clear on your why. Why do you want to start doing this? Who is it for? Who will benefit from this? How is this going to improve your life? Knowing your why will help, when you feel like giving up.
3. Set a goal. Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish each day, week, month, and year. This way you know if you’re staying on track and it gives you the ability to record your progress.
4. Start small. By using only thirty minutes to work on your new task instead of scrolling social media or watching tv, you add an extra 3.5 hours of valuable time to your week. This becomes an extra 14 hours a month.
5. Forget about the end goal — for now. Focusing too much on the big picture can feel overwhelming and create a perfectionist mindset, especially in the beginning. Of course, it’s good to know where you want to be, but don’t let where you are, stop you from getting there.

Flowers bloom where you water them. What you give attention to takes root in you.

Stay willing — to learn, to fail, to start over, to try again.

Stay present.

Stop waiting around for your dreams to come true. Magic happens when you take small steps toward your goals. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll reach your destination.

The path to success is a tough mountain to climb, but the view at the top makes it well worth the hike.