After doing my annual New Year’s Day polar plunge, I have some reflections about the way I carried it out and how that translates to the bigger whole. 

I stepped towards the water, anticipating with each step closer, the freezing cold that I was about to endure and then the amount of time it would take me to warm up after. Thinking in my head about how much I really didn’t want to get my hair wet or lose feeling in my toes. Even through this reel of negative thoughts, I stepped into the water and waded in up until about knee-height. And then did… nothing. I just stood there, thinking to myself if I was even going to go under the ocean any more. 

But if I hadn’t been worried about anticipating the discomfort and the aftermath of the plunge, I would have just dove right in without hesitation. And then instead of standing in the freezing water for a few minutes while deciding if I really wanted to follow through as soon as I started feeling cold, I would have jumped in with abandon and been able to get out just as fast. 

When I was younger, I remember feeling a sense of excitement about this. That the discomfort was actually part of the fun. It made me feel a sense of camaraderie, the so-called suffering. If I looked at things like this when I was younger, what changed? When did I get so adverse to the discomfort?  

I ended up dunking myself fully in the healing water of the ocean and letting it wash over me in all her glory. It was freezing cold. I did lose feeling in my toes. It did take a long time to warm up after. In a small-scale worst case scenario, all of the things I was fearful of and adverse to actually happened. But guess what, I had a smile on my face and a sense of accomplishment afterward. 

This is the lesson I’m taking into 2026: Discomfort is where the magic happens. Discomfort is where the fun is, if we just shift our view and embrace it.