I’ve never been a fan of cold water. It’s fair to say I’m a complete wuss on that front.

Which means I’ve avoided the whole cold-water plunge fad … up until a couple of weeks ago.

I was in Utah on business, and my friends Jess and Elyse invited me to join them on their regular trip for a cold plunge in a mountain stream through a canyon.

Well … a mountain stream through a Utah canyon … if ever there was a place to do my first cold water plunge, this was it.

And really … how bad could it be?

Turns out, pretty bad. I walked into the stream to mid shin height. It wasn’t just cold, it hurt. Like, really hurt.

I made it to a rock in the middle of the stream and managed to perch there out of the freezing water. It didn’t help that Jess and Elyse were sitting in the water up to their arm pits.

Then Elyse gave me some great advice. She said just put your ankles in.

That I figured I could manage. At least for a minute. So I put my feet in, and breathed. And I survived. After a couple of minutes, it wasn’t so bad.

Five minutes later I had fully submerged.

And of course, this is a metaphor. If there is something hard or painful that you’re putting off, what’s the small chunk that you could do? What would putting your ankles in look like?