Gold Is Buried In The Darkness

Being content with your skill level today isn't complacency, it’s strategy. It’s the conscious decision to anchor your mind in the present, standing on the shoulders of every gritty, unglamorous, unseen day you've stacked before this one.

It’s not as if your life is a movie with a rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. The pursuit of mastery isn’t born in a grand cinematic moment of glory. It’s built in the quiet repetition of showing up when no one’s watching.

It’s attacking your warm-up with a monk like focus because details matter. It’s looking your habits in your eye and asking, “Is this building me or breaking me?” It’s taking one deep breath, exhaling to steady your mind with your reset instead of snapping because calm is a weapon.

Stacking days isn't just about improving. It’s about becoming more in tune with the vibration of your soul. It’s about stepping into knowing yourself with an intentional grace-filled curiosity. It’s wondering with intent.

Most people view the unknown corners of themselves like a horror movies haunted basement. Creaky stairs, flickering lights, and the quiet suspicion of what lies in wait in the darkness at the bottom is scarier than what will transpire if you stay on the top step asking with a trembling voice, “Who’s there?".

So, of course, you avoid it. You run back up and slam the door behind you planting our back hard against the door to prevent anything that’s down there from coming into the light. Shades of Hodor protecting Bran from impending doom

But the darkness is where the gold is buried.

Avoiding the self work is the pursuit of safety. Safety provides a false sense of comfort. Without the risk of taking one more step into the basement the version of you that exist is all that’s possible.

You will become stuck.

Stuck because you have yet to connect with your operational patterns.

The narrative running loops in your brain.

Your triggers.

Your power.

The beauty of who you are.

The understanding that you don’t need anyone’s validation to believe in what you’re becoming.

So don't stack days because you're haunted by the feeling that you're not enough. Stack them because you give a damn about yourself. Because your craft matters to you. Because you love who you are and you're curious about who you could be tomorrow.

Growth is rooted in the small daily acts of building your body of work. One imperfect, intentional day at a time.

Don’t fool yourself. There will be days that SUCK. No way around it.

Some days you'll feel like you're swimming in wet cement while everyone else seems to be flying. That’s the foothold traps caused by hearing things from parents or coaches like, “Never be content. Someone else is getting better.” Living in discontent is the hollowed screamed that never leaves your throat. It is a silent slide into despair where comparison becomes your religion and ego wears the costume of ambition.

Don’t let it fool you.

The ego whispers, “You should be further by now.”

Discontent echoes, “See I told you. They are getting better. Look how you just played.”

But your true self says, “I’m at where I’m at. Let’s work with purpose and intention today for tomorrow.”

Many coaches and parents will attempt to fuel you with the chip on your shoulder method riding the fumes of resentment. And while that might get you some initial distance. It will not sustain you. It’s the vapors of rocket fuel. It burns fast and hot ultimately leaving you empty.

Or the other option…

You can begin to stack days from a place of contentment. Building off the foundation of who you are. The more days you stack from a spirit of curiosity, you will find a grounding inside of you. It will provide a steadiness in your soul that reminds you, “I am not broken. I am building. My path is my own. It is a trek I will be on for the rest of my life. I ‘m not in a rush to arrive at my destination.”

Whether it's grueling work or recovery, solitude or sweat, don’t forget you're investing. Daily. Silently. Stay consistent because eventually you’ll wake up one morning, slide your legs off your bed, sit your feet on the ground and realize:

You’ve become one bad motherf—er.

Not because you chased it, but because you stacked it.