The 75 Hard Challenge has taken the internet by storm, and with good reason. With 5 simple tasks per day, the 75hard challenge creator promises a whole new level of mental toughness.
However, fitness, nutrition, and mental health professionals have critiqued this challenge as risk and dangerous.
You are watching: The New 75 Hard Challenge Rules [PDF] A New Approach to Toughness and Improvement
Given that the original intention and approach of the challenge have been very successful for some people variations of the challenge have risen that make the challenge a great opportunity for anyone hoping to break out of a rut and build new habits.
In this post, we’ll review the 75 Hard Challenge, the new and improved version that I highly recommend, and my experience with the challenge – committing to skipping alcohol, committing to exercise and recovery, and practicing some great mental fitness routines over 75 rut busting days.
Read on to discover how the pros, cons, best way to approach the 75hard rules (that I recommend), and hear my experience!
Also, feel free to read my 75 Day Habiit Building Challenge Guide: Unlock happiness, health, and self master by building 10 powerful habits.
Don’t forget to download your free 75 Day Hard Challenge printable journal [PDF]…
And if you’re interested in a healthier alternative to the 75 Hard Challenge, be sure to checkout the 75 Strong and the new book The 75 Strong Challenge
This post may contain affiliate links
What is the 75 Hard Challenge: A 75 day challenge aimed to improve mental toughness by completing a set of 5 tasks everyday related to exercise, eating, and reading.
– Great catalyst to spark positive change and create positive daily habits
– Encourages adding a new fitness routine
– Encourages you to read and absorb knowledge each day
– The habits in the challenge aren’t sustainable
– The structure can do more harm than good – two workouts a day is too much for most people
The 75 Hard Challenge starts with good intentions, but misses the mark with too much exercise to be healthy, and misses an opportunity to reinforce long term healthy habits.
However, I am enjoying and recommend the challenge, with some modification. With a few changes (that we recommend here) this is an excellent approach to improving your life. Read more on the verdict here.
Read more to discover what’s great about the 75 Hard Challenge and how to make it more beneficial for you.
Or, click here to learn more about the book, “The 75 Strong Challenge”
“THE POSITIVE HABITS IN LIFE NEED TO BE ROUTINE AND AUTOMATIZED. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose complexity and gain predictability and simplicity.”
– From the book “12 Rules for Life” by Jordan Peterson
This excellent piece of advice highlights an opportunity to make everything in the 75 hard challenge a positive new habit or routine to maintain and benefit from in the long term.
Let’s look at the old guidelines and a new set of 75 Hard Challenge rules for better results.
The 75 Hard Challenge is a 75 day challenge created by Andy Frisella and aimed at building mental toughness by completing a series of 5 tasks every day based on the rules of the 75 Hard Challenge
Each day, participants must complete all 5 of the following tasks each day.
1. Follow a diet
2. Workout twice a day for at least 45 minutes with one workout outside
3. Drink 4 liters of water per day
4. Read 10 pages of nonfiction each day
5. Take a progress picture each day
If a participant misses completing all of the tasks before they go to sleep, they must start back at day 1.
Click here to download the original 75 hard challenge rules in pdf here
Whether the 75 hard challenge is dangerous for you depends on how you approach the challenge.
Whether the 75 hard challenge would be worthwhile for you depends on what you expect to get out of your 75 days of commitment.
When taking on “challenges” like these, you have to choose between two types of goals. Are you doing the challenge just to say you did something tough and prove something to yourself? Or, are you doing this challenge to create new habits, practices, and sustainable positive results.
If you simply want to do something hard to do and you’re not looking for sustainable results or worried about health risks along the way, the 75 Hard Challenge the way it is currently written may be fine for you.
However, suppose your goal is to build lasting positive change such as getting and staying fit or losing some weight, keeping it off, or adding a few positive habits like reading more or drinking alcohol less often. In that case, this challenge may need adjustments to align to the last positive change achieved with minimal risk along the way.
The most important question to ask when assessing if this challenge is for you is, “If I continued the tasks from 75 Hard indefinitely, would the results be positive in a way that I want long term?”
If the answer is yes, we’re building positive habits and positive long-term change that’s right for you. That’s great.
If the answer is “no,” there are some risks, and we need to adjust.
Some of the 75 hard challenge rules are risky and require much effort that may not lead to sustainable habits or results that will stick after the challenge.
However, suppose you approach this challenge as a catalyst to reprogram bad routines in daily life and build in new, healthy habits and improvements (and we make a few changes to how we execute this challenge). In that case, this challenge absolutely has the potential to be beneficial.
Whether or not this challenge will ultimately be beneficial to you depends on your goals.
75 days is a lot of time to invest in just testing whether or not you can complete something. If a personal test or a “rut buster” is what you’re after, I highly recommend these taxing challenges that offer challenging conditions and hone mental fortitude and toughness in a much shorter period
If you’re isolated and can’t commit to going somewhere right now, consider these options
All of these tasks are great opportunities to push yourself to the limit in a way that might feel like they’re going to break you but happen in a short enough period that the risk is low. Yet, at the same time, the feeling of accomplishment upon finishing is still extremely high.
In my experience, I’ve run an impromptu marathon (alone and in a competition with a few a day’s notice), gone on a silent meditation retreat, and gone on a “road to nowhere” motorbike ride for a week. All of these were risky, taxing, highly beneficial, gave me a real adrenaline rush, and did lead to some lasting positive outcomes – but they didn’t last 75 days either.
There are plenty of short-burst challenges we can do in daily life.
If you’re giving something 75 days of your life, ensure it serves your long-term goals.
For all of its flaws, the 75 Hard Challenge has a lot of potential. Anything that shocks us out of bad habits and adds good ones is a great start. But to make this challenge healthy and worthwhile, we still need to change a few things before jumping in.
So, what needs to be improved in the 75 Hard Challenge rules?
2 workouts a day is risky – go with 1: Beyond one workout per day, there is little benefit and significant risk of injury. Athletes training for a Crossfit competition or the Olympics may do this, but they have a coach, support team, nutritional resources, and a recovery plan you don’t. Stick to one workout on workout days for maximum benefits and minimal health risk
75 days of exercise without rest is risky – schedule recovery days: Worthwhile exercise may break your body down slightly. More importantly, it stimulates recovery or metabolizes stored energy (breaking down fat). This recovery, growth, and improvement only happen when you rest. If you exercise for 75 days straight, you are blunting your gains. At worst, you are weakening yourself and moving closer to potential injury day by day.
“Diet” is too vague and a potential trap for trends – choose specific, healthy eating habits: Most “diets” are fads passed around on the internet that may result in a pound lost for now but are unsustainable long term due to health or interest reasons. Not being specific about an approach to nutrition and not choosing a science-backed option that creates habits we can maintain long term is a waste and, at worst detrimental to our health. Also, the eating plan should take into account the fitness approach.
Taking a picture of yourself every day is a potentially negative distractor, focusing on instant gratification and the “are there results yet” mentality. Focus on the process instead. Long-term change should embrace the process (daily habits) and ignore the result until the end. Instead, take a picture once at the beginning and once at the end, and use our checklist recommendation below.
Don’t take a picture every day feeding the “instant gratification need” – use a daily checklist as your proof that you’re doing the work, and let that be enough. Understand that the results will come. If you have done the work each day, you have results to be proud of. You don’t need a picture to distract you from that.
Read more : What to wear to a graduation as a guest
Now that we’ve identified the trouble spots, let’s improve on a potentially good thing.
If you are interested in a better 75 day challenge for self-improvement, consider taking the 75 Strong challenge instead
In our improved 75 hard challenge guidelines, we’ll build on the good start already created and correct some of the faults we just talked about by adding some worthwhile changes. Then, further down the page, we’ll share the new guidelines.
Our 75 Hard Challenge Rules Upgraded:
Despite the important points for improvement listed above, the #75Hard challenge has much good already built-in, such as working out routinely, skipping alcohol, and building a habit of absorbing knowledge daily. The best option here is to continue with these good points and build on them. We’ll make a few tweaks so that the challenge is sustainable (from a health standpoint) and leads to sustainable habits, and we’re in business.
The most significant potential benefits of the 75 hard challenge that we want to keep are:
Building that “long term commitment” and grit muscle
Click here to download a PDF of the upgraded 75 challenge rules here
The 75 Strong Challenge is an approach to 75 day challenge that aims to be achievable in the short term and permanently ingrained, essential habits in the long term.
In the 75 Strong Challenge, instead of making this a tough, testing challenge to get to the end, we make the 75 day challenge a program to build essential habits for a happier, healthier, more successful life. We also use scientific research-backed approaches to ingrain those habits deeply enough that they will stick for life.
Interested in building the foundations of a better you, physically, mentally, and emotionally, in only 75 days and lasting for far beyond?
Click here to discover more about the 75 Strong approach to building a better, stronger you, in only 75 days.
Click here to learn more about the 75 Strong Challenge
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If you are alive and breathing right now, you have a lot to be thankful for. Suppose you are aware of all of those amazing things. In that case, you’re more likely to appreciate them and maintain a positive and empowering outlook because of that.
Saying aloud, or writing, 20 things you’re grateful for every morning – will jumpstart your day in a positive, empowering way and put you in a headspace of appreciation and strength regardless of what comes your way.
You can do it in the shower, while you’re making breakfast, or even while you’re in bed.
We receive constant feedback (usually negative) and lists of things to improve daily. However, how often do you get reminded of the positive things you do to maintain, reinforce, or double down on?
Nobody is perfect, and no one in this life will be, so focusing on imperfections to correct to reach perfection is not only a dead-end effort but its draining.
On the other hand, highlighting what is good, what is amazing, and what is done well to focus on and grow is a much more pleasant way to get closer to perfection. Of course, you’re not going to get to perfection…but this approach will get you closer in a less soul-sucking way.
Imagine a garden, half crappy weeds and plants we hate, and half great plants with delicious fruits that we love.
Imagine if, instead of pulling the weeds to improve our garden (which is miserable), we simply watered the fruiting plants (much more enjoyable) so much that they grew over and overshadowed the plants we disliked. We’d achieve the same result, a better garden, with a pleasant experience. Of course, it’s still imperfect, but it’s better, and we enjoyed the process.
That’s what this exercise is about.
Every day, highlight 20 things that are awesome about you – on paper and out loud – to give yourself the credit you deserve and to remind yourself to keep doing them. The ego boost will be nice, but you’ll remind yourself to “keep on keeping on” by continuing to do more of what makes you awesome. That’s how you’re going to improve the “gardens” that are your mind, your body, and your life in a sustainable, fulfilling way.
For 75 days, we’ll program consistent and balanced “movement” into our lives – a balance between exercise and recovery
By having an exercise plan of “2 on 1 off” – 2 days of exercise and 1 day of rest and stretching (mobility) and repeating – we have the stimulus to improve physically (exercise), we set aside time to recover while eating right, and we give attention to active recovery (stretching) – to rebuild the mobility and flexibility many of has lost in a lifetime of neglect.
How to move…
For your “movement” or exercise days, do any kind of movement that resonates with you for at least 45 minutes. For example, if you want to walk the dog for 45 minutes, walk. If you want to hike, go hike. Keep in mind high-intensity interval training will burn the most fat and have the best cardio benefits. However, simply building a long-term habit of moving daily is more valuable than pounds lost in the short term or doing a specific workout for 75 days.
If you need high-intensity workout inspiration, you can do without a gym. I recommend these:
Don’t forget to rest after 2 days of exercise:
Every 2 days, we move, and exercise will be balanced with a day of “active rest.” You’ll skip the workout, and you’ll do relaxing but beneficial stretching instead.
For any effective fitness regimen, you need rest. In an adequately intense fitness program, 2 days of exercise creates the right amount of stimuli (tissue damage, hormone production) to make good use of a day of recovery, helping us build strength and burn fat optimally. With fitness over the 75 days, our goal isn’t destruction. Our goal is strength, stamina, and mobility gains, and habits that support that in the long run.
This potential habit, training for 2 days, resting 1, and getting back to training, is a routine we can and should do into old age and indefinitely. If this challenge programs in that routine, you’re winning
For rest days, set a timer for 20 minutes and just stretch your trouble spots. Then check your box on the challenge checklist for that day.
If you need help stretching, I recommend these 10-minute stretch routines by body part
Adding the mental component of quiet time and meditation levels up our challenge, so we’re not just challenging our mind with learning and discomfort but promoting recovery from the mental and physical standpoints – something many people overlook in their lives
The mind needs to be trained just like the body, and “mental strength” is rooted in self-discipline and focus.
Additionally, just like the body, the mind needs rest.
Meditation, or just simply sitting in a hammock in silence, carves out 15 minutes that simultaneously builds mental strength through the self-discipline of keeping the mind clear and embracing silence and chill while also allowing our minds to recover from the chaos in a way we don’t normally allow time for on a daily basis.
No matter what your goal, 15 minutes of silence will do wonders for your mind
If you want a little light instruction and a lot of interesting information on meditation, I recommend Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn’s book, Wherever You Go, There You Are.
If meditating is too “woo-woo,” give yourself 10 minutes to calm down and be alone with no stress or stimuli
In this day and age, a new fad diet hits the internet every .5 seconds and infects the population with minimal scientific backing. We want to avoid this.
What we want is to incorporate scientifically-backed healthy eating habits that 1) we are certain generally improve our health (based on scientific research and years of testing) 2) we can maintain and stay healthy well after the 75 days.
I highly recommend these eating guidelines generally:
“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar”
This is excellent advice for eating no matter who you are. In the long term, your weight will drop to a healthy level, and you’ll have enough fuel for the workouts and activities that make you feel alive.
Additionally, start your day with a protein, fat, and a veggie-heavy breakfast – not a sugar bomb coated with syrup, and a side of syrup, sugary frappe
Start applying these guidelines by practicing the following habits over the next 75 days:
Last, I recommend considering adding an “eating window” or intermittent fasting. Maintaining an extended period each day wherein our stomachs stay empty has the following benefits:
Best of all, intermittent fasting is a habit that we can apply to our lives indefinitely that will positively benefit us
As accepted as alcohol is in society, it has a huge list of side effects that make it questionable and definitely detrimental in excess.
The three main reasons not to drink alcohol are:
1. Any amount of alcohol kills brain cells and reduces important grey matter you won’t get those brain cells back. Anything that literally causes brain damage is worth skipping.
2. Alcohol severely affects sleep patterns which in turn causes emotional volatility, mood swings, and reduced decision making capacity for days after drinking.
3. Alcohol consumption usually takes place in way that negatively affects recovery, and hormones, and usually accompanies and enables a slew of other negative habits
All 3 of our reasons for skipping alcohol during this challenge are either to avoid permanent damage or to reverse the damage.
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These 75 days without alcohol will allow you to regain a clear head, level emotions, and reach peak physical performance.
For most of us, reading time is generally spent reading blog posts suggested to us by Facebook, designed for a short attention span, and shared based on their “virality” instead of their quality and meaningfulness.
Only consuming information from these sources leads to three problems:
1. We’re only consuming what is suggested by social media algorithms, making ourselves susceptible to echo chambers.
2. We are conditioning our minds for short, controversial, dopamine hit-inducing “content.” Along the way, we lose the benefits that come from reading longer articles and books that communicate robust, deep, and complex ideas that can’t be communicated in a meme or with less than 1,000 words.
3. Living on short-form writing cultivates that “goldfish attention span” and the need for another “hit” while depriving us of the mental calm that comes from a nice, long book
Reading 10 pages per day gets us back into the habit of intentionally choosing what we choose to learn (instead of having it suggested) and committing to absorbing a complex idea made up of complex ideas over chapters.
Education over entertainment.
Each of us has so many things we would love to do if we could flip a switch and skip the learning process.
I wish I could sing. I wish I could dance. I wish I could sculpt concrete. I wish I could speak French. I wish…
Fortunately, we can’t skip the learning process, and we get to experience the joy of learning something we want to. Not something required for our job. Not something required for our degree. Not something required by our parents, our culture, or our religion.
We get to learn something we want to.
Use this challenge as a catalyst to start learning something you want to do. Learn to blog. Learn to do comedy. Learn magic tricks.
For 15 minutes every day, hit Youtube, open a book, or simply practice to experience learning something you want to learn for at least 15 minutes.
For 75 days straight, complete all of the following tasks. If you miss doing a task for a day, restart start from day 1.
Like many people over the past year, I adapted to the new normal; with fewer opportunities and motivation to live my “old normal” life, less healthy habits took the place of my lost routines and stacked with old bad habits from before.
After a stint of isolation, I popped out of my cave with my surfboard, eyes squinting in the unfamiliar sunlight, and released, “Wow! How did I get this out of shape!”
Along the way, I realized I was writing less, running less, and reading less. The banality of my limited routines stifled my motivation and led to the current state. Nothing was quite broken, but I had the potential to be better. I had the potential to do better.
I decided to reassess, recalibrate, and rebuild my routines and standards. I did an elimination diet to figure out what foods fueled my body best and which didn’t. I restarted a mobility program and equipped my home gym for calisthenics and Crossfit. Most importantly, I made the decision to jumpstart my actions – with the understanding that motivation would kick in eventually
Around the same time that I had this realization, a friend posted on the 75 Hard Challenge. He was committing to 75 days of a list focused on self-improvement – which is exactly the kick I was on.
I was sold.
However, after glancing at the list, a few elements seemed slightly risky and questionable.
At first glance, the 75 hard challenge missed a few important points that could make or break the challenge – specific eating habits, sufficient rest from workouts, personalization in the goals, and a long-term positive change and sustainable habits approach.
But the basic idea, committing to positive change, was an excellent start, and there’s no need to throw out a perfect start. Also, I had already been skipping alcohol and working out for the past few weeks, so adding some learning and “mental hygiene” components was a great opportunity for improvement. So, I created the new 75 Hard Challenge Rules for positive long-term change, committed to the 75 days, and haven’t looked back.
With a few of the right tweaks, this challenge has gone from being grueling (and potentially destructive) to a daily practice withs gradual improvements and a level of satisfaction that keeps me going.
The 75 Hard Challenge does require and hone discipline and willpower, but in a manageable and satisfying way with observable results.
After a month of routine workouts (I chose the 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge), no alcohol, and skipping refined carbs, I’ve lost 6 pounds, feel stronger than ever, and my sleeping patterns and mental focus have improved immensely. I’ve regained a love of reading – choosing it over Netflix – and my mood has been better too. We’ll see what day 75 looks like, but at this point, the challenge’s benefits are well worth the sacrifice.
With a few specific tweaks and upgrades, I highly recommend this challenge.
In my initial research of the 75 hard challenge, the most common question I was seeing was, “is the 75 Hard Challenge dangerous?”
For the average person, I do not recommend the 75 Hard Challenge as it was originally written. However, the positive impact we can create in our lives with 75 days of commitment is immense
Building healthy, productive long-term habits is the hardest thing to do, but the best thing to do – so that’s what I’m making this challenge about, and that’s what I want others to make it about as well.
Challenges are normally about the rush of touching it out – but eventually, we “rebound” and return to our old habits, losing our gains.
I’ve written this post to restructure the 75 hard challenge and make it a 75-day exercise in reprogramming, programming base, effective, healthy habits physically, mentally, and emotionally
I hope it’s helped you jump into the journey with me.
If you do and want to share your experiences with me, feel free to email me at [email protected]
I’ll look forward to hearing about your results on the other side.
Good luck!!
So, after you’ve knocked at a healthy and solid 75 day challenge, like the 75 Strong challenge or the 75 Soft challenge, what should you do next? 75+75 …or another 75 days.
In our approach to the perfect 75 day challenge, our goal isn’t completion, our goal is a lasting positive change. Incorporating research that 75 days is the perfect amount of time to build in a positive habit, instead of ditching our newfound routine because we feel we’ve achieved mental toughness, we instead continue the habits, fitness program, and nutrition plan that we built in the last 75 days. In the next 75 days, we do the work to keep our progress – in physical fitness, habits, and healthy diet – and add one more task about something we care about.
Perhaps we alter our nutrition plan for slight satisfaction but continue eating healthy foods. Perhaps we add self esteem boosting positive words as a morning ritual. Perhaps we tone down on our fitness plan, to allow for more social commitments and professional growth, but maintain the exercise and movement to keep our new physical shape and fitness level from our hard earned physical transformation.
The goal of the next 75 days (in our 75+75) is to continue the rippling positive developments across our entire life, and maintain that new, more positive life forever.
For more information on the specific guidelines of the next 75 days, and approaching the entire challenge as a habit building, self belief boosting, life changing 75 days (and an additional 75 days) read up on our upgraded interpretation – the 75 Strong program.
The 75hard challenge and the more long term focused 75 Strong challenge have been amazing approaches to helping people jumpstart, rejuvenate, and reprogram their lives.
However, the demanding nature of maintaining 4 tasks (in the case of 75hard) and 10 tasks (in the case of 75 Strong) have been daunting and difficult for some people. Given we all have work, relationships, and other commitments throughout our lives, balancing those healthily with the tasks in this challenge (75 hard) can be daunting at best and nearly impossible at worst.
That is why we have created the 75 Soft Challenge.
The 75 Soft Challenge is an adaption of the 75 Strong Challenge, with a set of beneficial and worthwhile tasks to do on a daily basis, but with more flexibility.
The 75 Soft challenge consists of 10 daily tasks scientifically proven to be beneficial in the long term, and allows you to pick 2 to 4 tasks everyday to do. That’s it.
By focusing on 2 to 4 tasks daily, we aim to gradually build in positive habits into your life in a manageable, enjoyable way, building aggregate results similar to the intentions and approach of “Atomic Habits” and the “Kaizen” approach to success.
Our 10 daily tasks in the 75 Soft Challenge are as follows
From this list, every day for 75 days you should pick 2 to 4 tasks to complete.
As the challenge progresses and you feel more comfortable, feel free to work up to 5, 7, or (ideally) 10 tasks per day.
Interested?
Click here to learn everything you need to know about the 75 Soft Challenge
In the 75 Strong Challenge, instead of making this a tough, testing challenge to get to the end, we make the 75 day challenge a program to build essential habits for a happier, healthier, more successful life. We also use scientific research backed approaches to ingrain those habits deeply enough that they will stick for life.
Interested in building the foundations of a better you, physically, mentally, and emotionally, in only 75 days and lasting for far beyond?
Click here to discover more about the 75 Strong approach to building a better, stronger you, in only 75 days.
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