One Saturday, back in March, Jeff Herring, Felicia Slattery and I were Tweeting back and forth about writing 100 articles in 100 days. Very quickly others started joining us on our challenge, and I mean a lot of other people. Within a short period of time it seemed like we had struck a cord with people and the challenge was on.

At this point I have to give credit to original 100 articles in 100 days challenger – Connie Ragen Green. Back in 2007 Connie decided to challenge herself, and kick started her article writing on Ezine Articles. So, she set out to write 100 articles in 100 days and submit them to EzineArticles. Unfortunately, Connie didn’t write 100 articles in 100 days… she only took 78 days to get it done.

It was her story that inspired me to challenge myself to start writing. I used Connie’s story as motivation to keep me on track as it helped to give me the confidence to see this through to the finish.

However I knew to get all the way to the end I would need to do more than sitting down and busting out articles everyday. I realized I would need to take 5 steps if I expected to complete this goal.

Here are the 5 steps you can use to help reach your own goal of writing 100 articles in 100 days:

1. Write down your goal, with a deadline – This was simple: my goal was to write 100 articles in 100 days. It is critical to put your goal in writing with a deadline. The deadline is a great motivator against procrastination.

2. Make your goal public – This is the key to accountability. You need to let others know about what you plan to do. And the more people you tell the better. Go out and find the highest rooftop, and shout it at the top of your lungs.

3. Set up milestones – How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. OK, that’s an old joke. However, it holds true for any large goal. You need to break it down to small manageable parts.

4. Reward yourself – When you reach your milestones and final goal give yourself a reward. Don’t just have a reward for reaching your goal, give yourself a reward for reaching each milestone. This will serve as extra motivation along the way.

5. Get support – One of the best ways to maintain your motivation is with a support network. Get others around you who understand and support your goal.  The best support any one could find to help is to join others who are also trying to reach the same goal.

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MILKMAN Julian Huckle proved he has a lot of bottle by running a marathon and climbing the UK’s highest mountain over two days. Julian (50), from Orton Waterville, tackled the tough feat in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and raised 1,629.

He said: “This was my seventh marathon. But to do both the marathon and climb together was perhaps pushing it a bit. I like doing slightly crazy things now and again. You have to push yourself and your body to extremes. I was a bit sore and stiff afterwards. But knowing I had raised that amount was good encouragement.”

Julian completed the Loch Ness Marathon on October 3 before climbing Ben Nevis, which stands at 4,409ft and is the highest peak in Scotland and the UK, on October 4. He completed the marathon in a respectable three hours and 28 minutes – breaking the over-50s marathon record for his running club, Werrington Joggers, which he has been a member of for five years. He had originally hoped to swap his trainers for climbing gear straightaway and head up Ben Nevis immediately after the marathon but he had to wait until the next day because it was getting too dark.

He said: “I had wanted to do both in the same day but night drew in by the end of the race, so I had to do the climb the next day.”

Julian’s sister, Giselle Brown, drove up to Scotland to support him but the climb itself was a solo effort.

He said: “I did it on my own. I was up there alone for 20 minutes at the top, then another man finally came and he took some photos for me. All the pain was worth it. Having support from my customers and raising that amount of money really spurred me on as well. The thought of letting people down kept me going. People had been stopping me in the street and saying good luck. I left letters explaining what I was going to do and they have been generous, a great support.”

The grandfather-of-one chose to support Macmillan Cancer Support because it is a cause backed by his employers Dairy Crest, based in Eastern Industry, Peterborough.

Two years ago, he supported their chosen charity, the Make A Wish Foundation – which grants wishes for seriously-ill children – by running the London Marathon and the Great Eastern Run in Peterborough. In both races, he ran dressed as a Rubik’s cube and raised 3,150 over both races. Julian – who has worked for Dairy Crest for 21 years – sees helping others as part of his job.

He started with a round in Bretton, which he kept for 17 years before transferring to Stamford and outlying villages, such as Barnack and Toft. He gets up at 1.30am each day and is out on the road by 3am making deliveries. But there is more than just milk in his float, due to a new online service milk&more launched by Dairy Crest a year ago, he delivers more than 250 different household products from bread and milk to compost.

Julian said: “You help out running errands and I have changed a few lightbulbs in my time, called emergency services for elderly people who have collapsed and the police if yobs are hanging around – you look out for the community in the early hours.”

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After completing the 100 Articles In 100 Days Marathon Challenge, I realized there were a few lessons I had learned along the way. These lessons were in fact some of the primary reasons I was successful. Below are they are listed and why I think they worked in helping me reach my article writing goals:

1. Just Do It – I was afraid to start this challenge because I didn’t think I could write 100 articles… let alone do it in 100 days. I mean who was I fooling, I had only 13 live articles.

But, then I figured… what the H E double tooth picks – What was the worst that could happen? I could join and do nothing, and would be no further along than if I didn’t join… Nothing lost, noting gained. I could join and write 15, 20 or 25 articles. Basically I would double or even triple the amount of live articles… Imagine, doubling or tripling your results in 100 days. Or, I could join and actually finish the the marathon challenge. It had occurred to me there was no downside to this challenge.

2. Stay on Target – Over the course of 100 days it was so easy to get distracted by other opportunities. There are a lot of shiny new things out there to draw your attention away from your goals. In fact, it happened to me a couple of times.

3. Push through obstacles – Any goal worth achieving will be littered with obstacles. And the bigger the goal, the more obstacles you will run into. Also you will find each person’s obstacles are going to be unique to them.

For me, my biggest obstacles was waiting for account upgrades. It would take several days to a week or more to get upgraded to the next level. Now, during this time I couldn’t publish any new articles. I just had to wait. I realized I was falling behind as each day passed while waiting.

So, instead of sitting on my hands and doing nothing I just kept writing articles and saving them in the draft folder at EzineArticles. This way when I was approved and upgraded to the next level, I would have be ready to submit the saved articles. This allowed me to keep writing on a daily basis, and kept me on track.

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