What a week it’s been.
Honestly, what a three weeks it’s been.
Ever since finishing the race, I’ve struggled more than I expected. I hit a pretty low spot. My routine disappeared. Workouts got skipped. Eating habits went sideways. It was like life went into a spin cycle — and I just let it happen.
It’s crazy how after doing something that feels so big, so consuming, so meaningful… a lot of normal life suddenly feels like a letdown.
At least it did for me.
After climbing mountains for 12 hours, pushing through exhaustion, and proving something to myself out there on the course… the everyday grind felt small. Instead of leaning back into the rhythm of life, I did the opposite.
I slowed down.
Way down.
So much that I let a lot of things go. Not exactly the picture of consistency or progression.
🔎 The Reflection
Last weekend I spent some time doing some honest self-reflection on the why.
Why did I feel this way? Why did the momentum disappear?
The conclusion I came to was simple:
Life can't always be about climbing mountains.
It can’t always be about outrageous challenges or proving to yourself that you can suffer longer than the next person.
Life is mostly something else.
Life is about the daily grind.
Life is about doing the hard things.
🧠 The Brain Hates the Grind
The brain loves to push back on the monotonous. It pushes back on the boring and the repetitive.
Getting up early every day eventually becomes a habit, but it also becomes routine. And that’s when the brain whispers:
“You can skip today.”
“There’s always tomorrow.”
That same voice shows up everywhere: workouts, home chores, relationships, faith walks, and eating habits.
Consistency isn’t glamorous. It’s repetitive. Sometimes it’s monotonous. But that repetition is exactly what builds something real.
⚒️ The Really Hard Things
I started realizing something.
The really hard things in life usually aren’t the extreme ones. They’re the small moments where your brain says:
“You can do that later.”
So I decided to create something to help me notice those moments. I started calling them Stacking Duckies.
To help myself stay consistent, I started building a simple journal around the idea. Right now I'm testing the structure and using it myself each day to track those small moments where resistance shows up.
The goal isn't to track epic accomplishments. The goal is noticing the moments where we win the invisible arguments in our heads.
I'm hoping to release the final version of the Stacking Duckies Journal soon.
If you're curious about the project and the gear we’re building around it, you can check things out here:
Because that’s where real discipline lives.
🦆 The Stacking Duckies Mantra
Hard is not extreme. Hard is resistance.
If I feel resistance and choose to act anyway — that duck stacks.
Hard usually looks like the things we want to delay, the things that take just a little more energy to begin, or the things our brain tries to convince us can wait until tomorrow.
Nothing heroic. Just honest.
🧠 What “Hard” Really Means
Hard is internal friction.
Not things like:
- 20-mile runs
- 4-hour workouts
- Massive life overhauls
Hard is usually smaller than that:
- 20 minutes on the stair stepper when you’d rather scroll
- Sending the uncomfortable email
- Doing the dishes before bed
- Drinking water instead of a Bang and a pastry
- Sitting in silence for five minutes instead of reaching for noise
I’ve asked before, “What happens when there are no duckies to stack?”
The truth is… there are always duckies.
They just look small.
🦆 The Five Daily Duck Categories
The system is simple. Each day you try to stack one duck in five areas of life.
1️⃣ Fitness Duck
- Vest stair stepper
- Mobility when hips feel tight
- Treadmill run when motivation is low
- Stretching instead of skipping cooldown
Not epic. Just intentional.
2️⃣ Work Duck
- The tough conversation
- Cleaning up a process
- Reviewing numbers instead of avoiding them
- Organizing the chaos
3️⃣ Home Duck
- Dishes immediately
- 10-minute reset
- Laundry folded same day
- Fixing the small thing
4️⃣ Nutrition Duck
- Skip fast food
- Protein first
- Water first
- No late-night raid
5️⃣ Spiritual / Mental Duck
- Prayer
- Journaling
- Gratitude
- Reading something that stretches you
- Five minutes of silence
📊 The Rule
The rule of stacking duckies is simple. Each day, aim to choose one hard thing in each of the five categories and follow through on it.
Some days you’ll hit all five. Other days you may miss one. The goal isn’t perfection — the goal is awareness and intention. When you notice resistance and choose action anyway, that duck stacks.
If you miss one today, stack it tomorrow. The focus is building momentum over time rather than chasing a perfect streak.
🧭 The Bigger Philosophy
Something clicked for me during this reflection.
The hardest battles in life usually aren't the extreme ones.
The hardest battles are the quiet ones where you choose discipline over comfort, consistency over emotion, and long-term growth over short-term relief.
You’re not trying to be extreme.
You’re trying to be aligned with the person you’re becoming.
The person your kids see. The person you’re still building into your 50s.
And the best part?
You don’t need mountains to do it.
You just need duckies to stack. 🦆
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