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Looking Back, Looking Forward

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There is something satisfying about looking back at a full calendar. Yet, looking at a clean, unmarked one is equally satisfying. As someone with a June birthday, I always feel bad for December and January birthday people. I get two equally spaced times each year to reevaluate and restart. Looking back and looking forward is something I enjoy twice a year. 

Those with December and January birthdays get robbed of a mid-year evaluation unless, of course, they choose July 4th, our nation’s birthday, as their restart date. Those born on MLK Day are the exception. They get to start again because everyone knows that by mid-January most people have already quit their New Year’s resolutions. 

Anyway, this is a time for new beginnings. It’s a time to look back and learn from the past and look forward to a world of possibilities. Did you reach your goals? Celebrate! If you didn’t, rest easy knowing no one reaches every goal. As we start a new year, let’s focus on the goals we did reach. Should we keep the same goal? Increase it by 10 percent? Decrease it by 50 percent? Pick a new one? 

In the blog Let’s Make the Last 100 Days Count, I committed to writing every day and encouraged you to focus on your goals. Yesterday, I printed the first draft of Finding Joy in the East. Staying committed helped me reach the goal I set on January 1, 2025. 

My Happy New Year blog suggested writing out our goals, sharing them with others, listing steps to reach them, and having accountability. I hope to have my second book ready for an editor by my birthday and ready to print by December 31, 2026. 

I’m writing these goals and sharing them with you so you can hold me accountable. So, what are your goals? Please share them so we can encourage each other. If you haven’t done so, look back and look forward. And let’s make this year one to remember. 

*iStock Photo by bombermoon

Joy M. Walker
Joy M Walker

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

Portland Bridge Square

Just as Planned

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Big goals feel overwhelming—until I break them down into say, “50 small steps.” This goal of riding my bike in all 50 states seemed almost unreachable. Yet I knew that if I focused on one step, one ride at a time, I would eventually reach that goal. That said, riding in Washington and Oregon went just as planned. Our nephew Zach met my sister Sandi and me in Seattle at the end of our cruise where my rides in Alaska also went just as planned. We ate lunch at an outside diner, walked along Puget Sound, and savored Indian food for dinner.

The next day Sandi hopped a shuttle to the airport and Zach drove me to Everybody’s Bike Rentals, in Portland. The owner Ryan set me up on a hybrid. After signing my life away and authorizing him to charge my card for the full amount of the bike if I didn’t return it, the bike was mine for 48 hours.

Zach and I rode a greenway in Vancouver . . . Washington not British Columbia. The paved trail meandered along a creek, wooded areas, and open meadows. Had I been alone, I may have gotten lost on the 16-mile out and back. Fortunately, Zach inherited his sense of direction from his dad, not his Aunt Joy. I followed his lead.

The next day we rode from Zach’s house in Portland. I had never ridden in a city where bike commuters and joggers have as much right of way as motorists. Riding along the Willamette River through town with hundreds of cyclists, runners, and “Walkers” made me feel I belonged.

When I returned the bike to Ryan, I realized my trip went just as planned. I have officially found joy in 48 states. Utah and Hawaii will need to wait.

For now, I’m home, shifting gears from riding to writing as I focus on book two: Finding Joy in the East.

Reaching a big goal doesn’t just happen without planning and perseverance. But if I stay focused, I might find that I reached my dream just as planned.

Joy M. Walker
Joy M Walker

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

Joy with bike in Alaska

One Step at a Time

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When a goal or dream feels daunting, people say “one step at a time.” As a cyclist, I say, “one pedal revolution at a time.”

My dream first sparked at age nine. At fifteen my brother Tom rode his bike across the country. The next year my sister Sandi, at eighteen, did the same. Their grit planted a seed in me.

After our mother died, the seed sprouted. In 2009, I pedaled across lower Michigan with Mom’s seventy-eight-year-old brother, Wil. The next year I trained and finally rode coast to coast–not at fifteen, or eighteen, or even twenty-five, but at age forty-six—thirty-five years after the dream began.

Toward the end of that 2010 ride, a new dream formed. As my feet and knees (and backside) screamed in pain, I realized I didn’t need to ride across the states again, but in all 50 states. The plan was to ride in the lower 48 states first. But Tuesday I rode in Ketchikan, yesterday in Juneau, and today, Skagway, making Alaska state forty-six.

The irony is not lost on me. I’m here in Alaska with my sister Sandi. When Princess Discovery docks in Seattle, my brother’s son will ride with me in Washington. From there, he’ll escort me to his home in Portland so I can check off Oregon, the place where his dad and Aunt Sandi first began their trek. By this time next week I will have ridden in 48 states, leaving Utah and Hawaii for the finale.

This dream has been unfolding for fifty years. Barring injury or death, I will reach my goal by age sixty-five. So, if you have a dream, or know a young person who does, please listen. Stay the course. If you get sidetracked, get back on the road. Don’t give up. Take it one step at a time. Or if you are a cyclist, take it one pedal revolution at a time. If I can do it, you can too.

Joy M. Walker
Joy M Walker

Thanks for being a part of this journey!

If you enjoyed reading this blog, I’d love your support in growing this community! Please share this with your friends, family, or anyone who might find it interesting. Your shares help me reach more people to help them find their joy.

Joy M. Walker

highschooler clearing the bar

Maybe all we need to do is lower the bar

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Maybe all we need to do is lower the bar. Yesterday marked 1000 days of reaching my steps goal. One thousand days ago wasn’t January 1 or my birthday, nor had I set a goal of 1000 days. It was a random Thursday in August 2022. Though I didn’t begin with this end in mind, reaching the 1000-day milestone didn’t happen by accident.

After receiving a Garmin watch for my birthday, I spent a couple of months experimenting with a steps goal that would stretch me as a physical education teacher turned writer yet still be attainable on days when my feet were sore from riding or mowing. Since most days I far exceeded my mark, I considered raising the bar. But on nights when I was walking in my neighborhood at 11:00, I knew it was just right.

Greg McKeown wrote in Effortless about setting lower and upper limits—do enough to keep the chain going, but not so much that you burn out. Inspired by this 1000-days milestone, I’ve lowered my lower limit for writing Finding Joy in the East. Restarting after focusing on Finding Joy in the West was a struggle. Then, I remembered Jon Acuff’s advice, “start with fifteen minutes.” So, that’s what I did. If it feels right in a few months, I can raise it, but for now, it’s set at fifteen minutes a day.

In Focusing on The Big Rocks, I wrote about putting the big, most important rocks in the jar first to keep the pebbles and sand from taking over. Writing Finding Joy in the East must remain my big rock. What about you? Have you been missing a goal because the bar is too high? Think like a high jumper: start low, build confidence, then raise the bar, but not too high. When it’s too high, we feel defeated. We know we can’t jump that high, so we don’t even try. Try it. Lower the bar. What do you have to lose?

*Photo Kb Wilkey