This is freeing, exhilarating, magical.

Take advantage of it, my friends.

Of course, we always have the magic of a fresh start available to us — in any day, any hour, any moment. Every morning is a beautiful fresh start! In fact, right this moment, you have the opportunity of a fresh start.

We should take advantage of these opportunities to see the freshness of the moment in front of us.

I recently was talking with my Zen teacher and admitted I hadn’t been studying as much as I’d committed to doing. She advised: “Start at one.” Basically, in basic breath meditation, where you might count your breaths, your mind will get distracted and wander. And then you can simply start at one.

Start at One — this is one of my mantras this year.

Let’s look at how to practice with this during each day, and a couple ways you can take advantage of Starting at One as we look at this beautiful year in front of us.

Practicing a Fresh Start in Each Day

Every morning, you get to ask yourself:

• What would I like to do with this incredible day?
• What would make today incredible for me?
• What am I feeling called to do today? What’s most important?

You can wipe the slate clean of whatever happened the day before (no matter what it was), and just start anew.

And then you get a couple hours into it, and maybe you find yourself off course. You’ve gotten distracted, or caught up in busywork.

Start again.

Take a breath, and imagine this next moment is a blank slate. What is most important right now? What would you like to do with this incredible hour in front of you?

Start again. And find gratitude that you get to start again, over and over.

Practicing with the Blank Slate of the New Year

We’re about a week into the new year, and you might have already started to lose the freshness of this year. But we’re just starting out! We’re at the very beginning, and we can do whatever we like with this year.

What would make this an amazing year for you?

What is possible for you this year?

Who would you like to be?

Take a notebook and pen, and spend 30 minutes thinking about this fresh space, and writing out some notes.

Is this the year you finally write your book, launch something, create something? Grow your business to a new level, launch a new mission, help others in a big way? Tackle something hard and scary and meaningful?

Are there new habits you want to create?

This is your year, to use however you like. What magic can you create?

Putting It Into Action

Once you have an idea of what you’d like to do or create … it’s time to make it actually happen.

Write it down and commit to it. Tell others and promise to report to them weekly. Adjust your plan each week, with the blank slate of the new week. Do a review each month, and get yourself back on track with each fresh month.

One small step at a time, make it happen. One fresh start at a time.

I have two invitations for you:

1. Sea Change Program: My habits program has been redesigned this year to get you good at the fundamentals of creating new habits. We’re starting with the mornings — the Beautiful Mornings Challenge is designed to help you start out a year of growth in the right way. Join Sea Change today to get started!
2. Fearless Training Program: If you’d like to deepen into the uncertainty of your meaningful work, this is the training program for you. You’ll set ambitious goals, commit to them, and work with whatever obstacles get in the way. Join Fearless today.

I promise: if you commit to one of these programs, you’ll create a year of meaningful growth. Pick the one that’s suited for what you want to do with this year, and get the support you need to make it happen.

We never looked forward to it, but it taught me a lot about facing things I don’t want to face.

The things we don’t want to face can look like a top hits list:

• Overwhelming piles of work
• Our unhealthy habits
• Our addictions to social media or online browsing
• Finances or taxes
• Difficult conversations
• Projects I’ve been putting off
• Putting my work out into the world
• Piles of stuff in my garage

Does any of that sound familiar? Turns out, facing difficult stuff is huge!

In this article, I’ll share what cold swimming taught me about facing difficult stuff.

What Avoidance Feels Like

Every day, I noticed myself not wanting to jump in the cold water. Luckily, I had two other people I’d committed to, and they helped me to stick to the commitment!

I would pause and notice how my resistance felt. It is a tightness in the chest, an urge to go do something easier or more comfortable, and urge to not even think about the hard thing. An urge to turn away, to go to the busywork.

Imagine having to dive in a pool of icy water right now — OK, some of you masochists would probably enjoy it (Canadians and Finnish!) — but most of us would quickly think of a few other things that need doing. We’d feel that bodily resistance, and maybe a little feeling of dread as well.

That’s the same thing we feel when it comes to tackling an overwhelming project or having a difficult conversation. We would rather scrub the kitchen.

Taking the Plunge

For 40 days, we faced this resistance. And here’s what I learned that helped:

1. Do it with others. Not only did it help keep me accountable, doing this challenge with my sons made it more fun. More meaningful. We were in it together. I highly recommend finding others to do it with.
2. Make it meaningful. Have a reason to do it that feels really meaningful to you. For me, it was not just doing it with my sons (though that would have been enough) — it was being a model for doing scary stuff in the world, for all of you. That is by far greater than my fear of discomfort.
3. Don’t overthink it. I wouldn’t think about the discomfort too much. There’s a way where we can psyche ourselves out, and argue why we shouldn’t do something. I didn’t think about it, I just stayed in the moment, and didn’t even anticipate the cold until I’d leaped into the air and was headed down into the water. The anticipation is often much worse than the actual difficulty.
4. Find the joy, find the fun. Every day, we experimented with different ways to find fun in the act of diving in the water. We’d dance or yell, laugh or howl. In the water, when the shock of the cold water hit me, I’d find a way to bring joy to that moment. It doesn’t have to be miserable just because it’s uncomfortable.
5. No big deal. The thing that helped us the most was the phrase “No Big Deal.” We would act nonchalant, like it wasn’t going to be anything to worry about. In the beginning we’d do a lot of preparation, but towards the end, we adopted the No Big Deal attitude and would just jump in. It was just as uncomfortable, but we found that acting nonchalant about it was very helpful.
6. Fall in love with the moment. There is always something to love. I would find wonder in the blue sky above us, in the intensity of the cold, in the aliveness I felt, in the yells and laughter of my sons. The discomfort is only a part of the moment — the actual moment is much bigger, and it is awe inspiring.

These were beautiful lessons for us. I hope to carry it through to my other challenges this year!