Day 54 of 75HARD

Today marks the 54th day of my #75hard journey. And so this post is a progress update.

The last time I wrote about it, I was on day 5. So it was just too early to give an objective opinion.

Now, whatever I have to say has much more weight, as I've been through quite a bit.

See, the beginning of every new endeavor is always easy. It's easy to start a brand new project, go to the gym on January 1st, start a blog with your very first article, quit smoking for 3 days, etc.

Anyone can do it.

Just to refresh your memory, 75hard is a mental toughness program created by Andy Frisella. For 75 consecutive days, the participant must do the following every day:

• Follow a diet
• No alcohol or cheat meals
• Complete two 45-minute workouts, one of which must be outdoors
• Take a progress picture
• Drink 1 gallon of water
• Read 10 pages of a book

There are a few nuances to some of these rules - i.e., the book needs to be a non-fiction book, workouts can't be consecutive, but other than that, that's basically it.

So, the 75hard is not hard for the reasons you might think.

I'm making wild assumptions here, but I'm pretty sure most people either think that it's not hard at all or they focus on some specific task and believe it's hard because of this or that.

If you look at the tasks in a vacuum, they're actually not hard. All these tasks are easy - nothing difficult.

However, to do these every day while your starter enthusiasm has long faded (as it always does) and not fail a single task - not even once - for 75 days, is rather challenging.

E.g., I've heard many people fail, because they forget to take the progress picture.

You have to pay attention to details and remain sharp with following this program. That's not easy.

Let's do some math. There are six tasks for each day (one can argue it's more), so that's 450 tasks in total. Now, out of 450 tasks, you can't fail a single one. If you do, you fail the program and start all over. All it takes is just one mistake.

Referring to the beginning of the article, it's easy to start going to the gym. But to do it for at least a year? That's hard. Or at the very least - not easy!

But this is what the program is supposed to teach - discipline to follow through with what needs to get done independent of your emotions, mood, weather, or politics.

It's Sunday, 11:54 as I'm writing this. It's cold and windy outside. I'll edit and publish this article, and then go for a run. Do I want to? Of course not. But it needs to get done, so I get it done.

See you next time!

k.