Grab a shovel and move the mountain
Work is finite
Large tasks have an end
Pretty much everyone in life has at some point come across a daunting task. It could be writing a long report, washing a huge pile of dishes, writing Christmas/New Year cards to a large number of people, or even taking that first step on a very long hike. There are endless examples of daunting tasks that I could list here and I’m sure you have your own.
When I was in graduate school everything seemed to be going ok for about half a year, but it was after that point that things started getting a bit overwhelming and I was considering just quitting due to the pressure I was under. But either fortunately or unfortunately my degree was tied in to my job, which was tied to my visa, so I couldn’t give up one thing without giving up everything. I had no choice but to endure and get things done.
I spent the next three and a half years grinding, doing experiments, working, and training whenever I could (I would go to the dōjō and take my frustrations out on the heavy bag, lift weights, and fight a lot to help me “calm down” and deal with the stress). At the beginning of those three and a half years it seemed like things would never end. One year in and It still looked like it would never end. Two years…the same. Even after three years the end looked like it was a long way away. But I did eventually finish, I did get my degree, and everything worked out well in the end.
One mantra that got me through everything was that there is no such thing as a task of infinite size. There are some very large tasks out there, but every task has an end.
Break it down
Something that is good practice to do, but I don’t think enough people (including myself sometimes) do is to break things down into manageable chunks. The unfunny joke, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,” comes to mind.
People who are familiar with project management may have heard of something called “work packages.” Work packages are the smallest, most manageable unit of work in a project as defined by a work breakdown structure. An example of a work breakdown structure would be something like the one below:
If you want to get even more grand in scale like this, moving a mountain would be the overall project. Breaking apart rocks, loading stones, and transporting would be the middle section. Hitting rocks with a pick, shoveling stones, and hauling debris would be the work packages. And when you break it down like that, even a monumental task like moving a mountain can be broken down into a huge (but not infinite) amount of work packages consisting of work with a pick, work with a shovel, and work carrying debris.
My 10 km a day for 2025 project
At the beginning of 2025 I decided that I wanted to run 3,650 km over the year. I broke that down into averaging 300 km a month, which was further broken down into 70 km a week, which was broken down again into 10 km a day. These were of course averages, but if I saw my week totals equaling about 70 km, and my month totals equalling about 300 km I knew I was on track.
I started out the year by front loading and completing a marathon on January 1st:
My first race of the year was also in January.
My first official marathon of the year was in March:
And in April I completed my first 100 miler.
May had me running another 100 km race:
I took part in a relay marathon in October:
And I ran another marathon in December:
And all the time I wasn’t running big races I was chipping away doing parkruns and other training runs. The final result is that on December 17th I completed my 3,650 km challenge:
To run 3,650 km looks like a daunting task. But breaking it down and running it step by step, kilometer after kilometer, week after week, and month after month makes it not only possible but very reasonable.
This is true for almost everything we do in life. The work is never infinite, it can all be broken down into manageable work packages, and constantly working at it until the job is done will get us to the point where the mountain we initially thought to be immovable has actually been relocated as promised.
Final thoughts and take home messages
I know that there are a lot of runners out there that run much more than 10km a day. But their goals are not my goals. My lofty goal for 2025 was 3,650 km a day and now I’ve done that. I moved my mountain.
Sometimes I chase numbers. Sometimes I don’t. I’m not sure if I will go for the same number in 2026 or if I will aim to do something else. Either way, I think it’s a good idea to set ambitious goals and go after them.
As the end of the year approaches I wish the best to all of my readers and hope that maybe I have given you some inspiration for goal setting in 2026.
Embrace the grind.
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