My Misogi Challenge

Before explaining my misogi challenge, I want to explain the core concept. Then I’ll tell you why I’m pursuing it, together with the big and small challenges I’m entertaining. I encountered misogi during a discussion in a chance meeting with a successful US entrepreneur who explained his annual challenge. He helpfully pointed me toward Michael Easter and his book, The Comfort Crisis. I intuitively recognised the concept, but Easter’s writing on his experience brought it to life for me.

The Roots Of Misogi

At its core, misogi encourages physical or mental discomfort—something challenging enough to reveal one’s limits and help one grow beyond them. These challenges are not about achieving perfection or competition but intentional discomfort as a pathway to mental clarity, focus, and inner strength. I observe that the challenges must have a high probability of failure; if you know you can do it, it’s not a challenge.

Misogi encourages stepping outside of lazy comfort zones to gain profound personal insight and a deeper worldview. That’s the attraction to me: What can I learn about myself and the world I live in by pushing myself out of my comfort zone? I have looked at the concept before in this blog, but life got in the way of my plans.

Tiny & Big Misogi Challenge

Before I tell you about the expected significant challenges, I spent some time thinking about more minor discomforts. I live a cosseted Western lifestyle, with an overabundance of food, warmth and shelter. I rarely leave this comfort zone as I go about my daily life. As a starter, I want to add one small misogi challenge to my daily life. To make me reflect on my lifestyle and understand not only my good fortune but also the fragility of our lives.

I detest the cold and wet. When it’s cold, I wrap up in my cashmere coat. I don my Japanese designer rain jacket as soon as a cloud crosses the grey, winter London sky. I steer away from cold water at all costs. My small starter kit misogi is to encounter freezing water once a week. This tips my cap towards the Shinto cleansing in cold water. Once a week, I will stand under the very cold (designed for post-sauna) shower in my gym. I’ll start with a minute under the shower once a week and build up to three minutes. It’s a small challenge, but it’s outside my comfort zone for me. Indeed, it’s an area I will avoid at all costs.

Of course, the more significant challenges are central to the misogi challenge concept. I have written about one in this blog: I will run my first marathon in my late sixties. It’s a true misogi, which will take me to the mental limit and probably beyond my physical limit. I have less than a fifty percent chance of succeeding. Therefore, it falls hard into the true spirit of misogi.

I am looking to add another challenge to my 2025 list. An ultra-ruck session is one idea. To see how far I can carry a heavy rucksack containing a 20kg weight plate. Is that enough of a challenge? I’m unsure, so I will reflect on it and consider other misogi challenge options. For now, getting very cold once a week and grinding out preparation for November’s New York Marathon is challenging enough.

It Hurts When I Do, It Hurts When I Don’t

At the heart of any misogi challenge is learning from the discomfort. I’m not setting out to simply thrash myself as an end in itself. What I learn about myself while preparing for and engaging in the challenge is critical.

My battered body hurts after exercise. After more brutal sessions, standing up from the sofa at home is difficult. As an aside, I know that if I don’t exercise, my body hurts after a few days. It’s a case of picking my poison – hurting through striving or laziness. As I train for my New York date with my inner self, I want to reflect for a few minutes after every training session. What did I feel, positive or negative, and did it contribute to my misogi challenge or detract from it?

Taking this further, I want to get out there and train when it’s cold or wet or I don’t feel like it—challenging my comfort zone. If it’s worth doing, then it needs sacrifice. To get deep into the concept of cleansing body and mind, I need to push myself and practice mindfulness about what I learn about myself. I know from my last couple of years that pain from injury won’t stop me.

But what about the absolute grind of getting ready for a big challenge? It’s been four years since I completed a physically demanding challenge, with everything from the pandemic to mental illness to accident-related injury standing in my path. It’s time to get back into the week-after-week, month-after-month grind to achieve something which, for me, will be major. I think that’s a challenge worth facing.