19 | One Cold Plunge a Week Changed My Life: Lessons From a Year of Doing Something Just For Me

Sometimes transformation doesn’t come from big, cinematic moments.
It starts with a whisper—and a weird idea that doesn’t make any sense at all.

In this episode, Carly shares the story behind a single intuitive nudge: “Jump in the ocean every week.” What started as a spontaneous experiment turned into one of the most transformative years of her life.

From burnout and identity loss to commitment, freedom, and unexpected clarity—this is for the woman in the messy middle who’s craving something real.

Inside this episode:

• The truth about transformation (it’s not always sexy)
• Why you don’t need to know why something matters
• What happens when you follow your body, not your brain
• How keeping one promise to yourself can change everything
• An invitation to start your next chapter—even if it makes zero sense

This one’s a love letter to the part of you that’s so ready for something more.

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0:00:00

Carly

Foreign. Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I'm your host, Carly Shade, and I'm here to uncover how good life can get. It all started with a whisper. I was halfway through a stair workout, sweaty and salty, by the ocean. And I suddenly heard a voice. Jump in the ocean every week. And then it disappeared. I mean, what do you do when a message like that just shows up out of nowhere?

0:00:44

Carly

I had no idea then, but that one sentence, that one instruction, jump in the ocean every week, changed my Life. It was April 2024, about two months after leaving my job. I was definitely still a little lost, a little wobbly. We were early into this new chapter and Matt and I were getting ready to climb and snowboard down Mount St. Helens. So I was doing a little bit of training at our favorite set of stairs right by the ocean.

0:01:15

Carly

Side note, when you are feeling lost, you can always count on a little type 2 fun to reset your priorities. But it was during this training session that this voice came to me. Clear instructions. Jump in the ocean every week. And then it was gone. Well, I didn't have much else going on, so I decided to listen to it. I gave it a go. I declared it publicly to friends, family, social media. I was gonna jump in the ocean every week.

0:01:45

Carly

There was no going back. At first, I thought this was gonna be a fun little experiment, like something cool to check off my list. Like, you know that feeling when you're back in school and you did that homework and so you got the good grade? That's how I thought this was gonna work. It's like, do the hard thing, do this cool thing, and you're gonna immediately get rewarded every time. Jump in the ocean, good grade.

0:02:06

Carly

So, spoiler alert. That is not what happened. And these first couple times were fun. I mean, it was summer, it was sunny, it was gorgeous. And then reality started to set in and it got cold and it got rainy. And none of these insights were coming my way, right? I just kind of thought like, yeah, every single time I go, there's gonna be some massive transformation, some new thing I'm gonna learn about myself for the world.

0:02:34

Carly

Well, none of that was happening. Instead, I felt silly for recording myself. I felt silly that I didn't have anything to share, even though I had told my friends, my family, my followers, like, this is what I was going to do. And there were days where I thought, who cares? If I don't keep doing this, no one's going to care. No one's going to know. Well, little did I know that this messy middle kind of the grind where there's not really anything flashy, but you have to still keep showing up like, that's where the real transformation begins.

0:03:11

Carly

And thanks to my competitive nature, even with myself, I stuck it out. And so here we are a year later, and I finally found those insights that I was looking for. But they really are the kind that only come from hindsight. So here are some of the top lessons that I have learned from Cold Water and commitment. The first, the universe does not operate on our timelines, okay? I thought that if I just did the thing, I would get rewarded consistently, right? That's what we were taught in school. It's such a common behavior, pushing and thinking that doing the right thing is always going to give us the exact answers we're looking for.

0:03:51

Carly

But life doesn't work like that. It's the sum of our experiences. It's a collection of our choices. It's the bigger picture that when we zoom out, that's when we see the lessons. That's when the timeline makes sense, not when we're right in the middle of it. Those insights that I was looking for, they did come, but not on my timeline. And the thing is, they were even better than I could have imagined.

0:04:15

Carly

And so just remember that the universe does have a plan for you. The hardest part is just to trust it. Okay? The second lesson, there's freedom in commitment. Okay? We can be so scared to commit to something, but in this case, it actually freed up my energy. I didn't have to waste these precious resources of, like, my time and energy debating with myself, because I was doing it every week. I knew I was gonna do it. I had said this. I made a commitment to myself, and I was gonna do it.

0:04:52

Carly

And so I've said this before in a previous episode. What is it? I think, like the art of commitment. We are so afraid to commit to something. So many of us are living in the in between, afraid to go two feet in. And, you know, and so instead of two feet in, where you have one foot in and one foot out, and that is how we all stay stuck, people. Okay? So there is freedom and commitment because I don't have to debate, I don't have to convince myself I committed, and therefore I'm going to do it no matter what.

0:05:25

Carly

So when you do find something that you want to try, commit to it. Okay? The third lesson, you don't have to know why something matters in order for it to matter, right? So here I am sharing all of these awesome lessons, these insights. I have this cool story, you know, I even created a community of people who joined me near and from far, you know, who were inspired by my actions. They started to maybe jump in the ocean or just started something new.

0:05:55

Carly

Do you think I had any idea how this worked, would turn out, how this would end up being one of the biggest chapters of my new story? Absolutely not. But if something feels important to you, that is enough. There is no explanation needed to yourself or anyone else that it matters. Okay? Just let it play out without an explanation, without that why? All right, last real transformation does not always look flashy.

0:06:31

Carly

It doesn't always look Instagramable. But it can be so easy to get caught up in how these things look to everyone else. Coming back to kind of that why the explanation, you know, I wanted to share this flashy wisdom. These insights. Look how cool and different I am. But the most profound transformations are not always obvious. My transformation didn't come from these intuitive hits every single time.

0:06:59

Carly

My transformation came from those first times that I decided to film myself. So worried about what other beach walkers would think, like, oh, my God, why is that girl filming herself? What a weirdo, you know? Or the time where I chose a real weird film angle and noticed quite a bit of cellulite on the booty. But I didn't actually. Transformation came from the time where I was tired and it was storming, but I hadn't gone out that week, and I got in the car and I did the damn thing and realized, you know what? That wasn't actually that bad.

0:07:31

Carly

The real transformation came from the time where friends started to join me. From the moment that I realized that actually me being happy in my most authentic way is contagious. That true joy is a magnet for the right people. So it was these moments that created the transformation. They may not have been the loudest ones, but they were these subtle shifts that impacted how I moved through my day, how I showed up in my relationship, how I chose to show up each day in my life.

0:08:07

Carly

And that's how, when I zoom out on my year, I can see how my life is different now. Because of these subtle shifts, I had done all the right things for years. I built a life that looked good on paper, but it didn't feel like mine at all. Like I was building everyone else's dream life at the expense of my own. But that is all different now. And I am in the driver's seat. And it started with one decision.

0:08:37

Carly

To do something for myself and no one else. It was a decision that came from my body and not my mind. And it was a decision that started with, this doesn't make sense. So this is my invitation to you to go do something that is for you and for you only. Go sign up for those singing lessons you've always wanted to try. Go take that pottery class. Go take yourself out on a date night and read your favorite mystery novel, eating, like, the best bowl of pasta you've ever had.

0:09:11

Carly

We think that building our dream life has to come from these big cinematic moments. And there's a time and a place for those. But sometimes it comes from just keeping a promise to yourself on a sunny spring Monday, one week at a time. That is, let's call it a love letter to myself. It's really fun to have these important dates in our lives, these anniversaries. This is the importance of reflection, so that we have these little anchors that we can then look back on, right? I have this date, I have this anchor to go look back on the last year of my life.

0:09:53

Carly

You know, I'm not doing this at New Year's. I'm not doing this at the end of the year when we're all tired and it's dark and there's holiday fever. You know, go find an anchor in your life and then get to look back on it. That's where the insights are going to come. That's where the lessons are going to come. But it has to come from you. The first step is that decision to do something that's for you and for you only. And maybe it starts with, this doesn't make sense.

0:10:16

Carly

And if you are someone that is in the messy middle, or you are ready for a change, but you're afraid of the messy middle. You're afraid of what comes next. You're afraid of the trust. You're like, I don't know who I am without a job title. Let's chat. Because I have been there, okay? And that's what I want to do, is to help all of you guys go create your dream life, Right? Like, my dream is to support you in your dream.

0:10:46

Carly

That's truly what makes me happy. So if you are thinking about making a change, and maybe it is a big cinematic moment, or you're just like, what the hell? I'm tired of waking up every day and not feeling like my life is the greatest thing ever. Okay? So no matter where you're at, I'd love to support you. I'd love to chat. Please send me a dm, shoot me an email, sign up for my weekly brew email. And as always, if you do love what you hear, if you love this episode, if you just love supporting me, please subscribe, follow, hit the download button, leave a rating on my podcast. All of those support me and it means the world to me. So thank you all for listening and as always, stay bold, stay balanced, and I will see you all next week.