Converting text " 12/31/2019 to date format

Hello,
I am having trouble calculating the number of days between two dates
I have entered in my date in the following format: 12/31/2019
It's showing up as text and won't let me convert it to a date format thus I keep getting an error when doing the calculation .
Is there a way I can convert this date to a date format with out having to use the =todate() function?
Thanks

You can use the Data | Text-to-Columns feature, and specify MDY on the final panel.

Hope this helps.

Pete