Cold Showers

If you want to see real change in yourself, start taking cold showers.

When you take a cold shower (or turn the water ice cold at the end as I do), you’re operating from your future self.

Your future self knows how invigorated you will feel after a cold shower. Your future self knows you’ll come alive with new ideas that will shoot into your head like an electric current. Your future self knows how capable you’ll become.

It’s your current self, so warm and cozy and comfortable, that doesn’t want to go through the temperature switch. It’s your current self that has all the logical reasons to choose comfort over a call to action, to prevent change and wave away inspiration.

Just watch. Take some cold showers. You’ll scream your head off and run in place like I do. You’ll curse me out for giving you the idea. But ultimately you’ll be awake, and you’ll take solace in the fact that you proved you want to be alive more than you want to be comfortable.

Small act. Big consequences.

If you start listening to your future self more than your current self, you’ll get more done with your days, you’ll have new ideas, and you’ll be inspired. And, paradoxically, if you let your future self talk you into these ridiculous sorts of acts, you’ll become more present than you thought possible.