☀️ I said I would never do this

I don’t do cold. If it’s below 70, I’m wrapped in enough layers to audition for The Revenant.

I hate the cold so much that I use a space heater in the summer. My space heater lives on the floor by my desk. He has a name and he is the love of my life. No one understands me the way Anthony does.

When I began my radical year of self-improvement I said I’d “try all the trendy, weird or cliche self-improvement stuff so you don’t have to.” Then I followed it with “but please don’t make me do a cold plunge.”

To which you all immediately said “COLD PLUNGE! DO ITTTT!”. I received essays of all the amazing benefits of cold therapy, sonnets of your personal experiences of how it was life-changing, haikus of your cold-plunge-love.

Cool, guys. Good for you. I still don’t wanna.

Cold= bad. I’d rather be too hot than too cold any day.

But I had this gut feeling that at some point, I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to willingly submerge my body into a tub of freezing cold water. Bonus points for staying in there for THREE MINUTES.

On my flight to my coaching certification retreat, I devoured The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins. The idea is simple: stop overthinking and start doing. It takes less than five seconds to push yourself to take action on something you’d rather avoid.

By counting down from five, you can actually hack your brain’s wiring and kick-start momentum.

This technique is a game-changer because it sidesteps procrastination and quiets that overthinking voice in your head.

It taps into “metacognition”—basically, thinking about your thinking. By counting backward, you override hesitation and flip the switch from indecision to action.

Imagine whenever you’re about to put off something important, like a workout. The 5 5-second rule interrupts the mental chatter and turns you from a passive observer of your thoughts into the director of your actions.

Once you learn this rule, it will haunt you. I’ve used it no less than one hundred times since I learned it.

So what are the odds that fresh from reading this rule, a cold plunge quite literally appeared in front of me.

I’m not kidding. I get off the plane; we check into our hotel room; I change into my swimsuit, I greet everyone at the pool and someone says “oh look a cold plunge”.

I nearly shout “Oh. Screw you, Mel Robbins.”

This was happening. This was fate. My fate. My very cold fate.

“Ok, I’m doing it.”

We gathered. Ash, a seasoned cold-plunger, gave her advice and manned the video camera.

I shouted “THIS IS FOR YOU, MEL ROBBINS!”, counted backward from five and before I could overthink myself out of it, I was in the water.

And I stayed in the water for three minutes.

Three minutes of hell. Spoiler: hell is not hot like we thought, it’s frozen.

I’m pretty sure my soul left my body and is still shivering somewhere.

I started to envy Leonardo DiCaprio* as he floated down into the ocean’s abyss leaving Kate Winslet on that door (the door, by the way, that was clearly BIG enough to support him. For the record, I would have actually never let go, Jack.)

The point is I hated it. But I did it. And I think the most important takeaway for me was that I didn’t actually need to summon three minutes of ice cold courage, I only needed five seconds.

don't worry guys. i totally made it look...effforrtttlesssss...

I don’t need one hour of determination to go to the weights class, I just need the five seconds to walk from the car to the front door.

I don’t need to sustain motivation through two hours worth of focused morning routine, I just need five seconds to launch myself out bed instead of hitting the snooze button.

The first five seconds of any new hard thing are what’s crucial. The rest is all momentum.

So who’s in? Like Mel, start with tomorrow morning’s wake up time. Set up your clock away from your bed. When the alarm sounds, countdown from five and blast out of your bed like a rocket. No snooze button. Then report back!

xoxo- Katie Day (write back soon!)

*Ope. That's two Leo DiCaprio references in one email. I hear if you make three, a mysterious spinning top shows up on your desk.

Current Read:

Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds by Carmine Gallo. I'm speaking at TED at some point, (she said with delusional optimism with absolutely no proof or solid plan) so I'm going to start brushing up on how to kill it if when I do.

Current Growth Goal:

Still obsessed with launching my brand new website on September 30th so it's taking up any possible free-time. I'm obsessing. It's fun though.

Up Next:

Today is day one of what I call the annual "birthday guantlet". My three girls birthdays are right in a row starting today with Callie Rose, age fourteen! Happy Birthday, my firstborn, my sweet soul! I have been a mom for fourteen years. That's WILD. I take them on a birthday adventure scavenger hunt every year and I will continue to until I die or they ask me to stop.