why i failed the 75 hard challenge
lessons for a better year
It’s a warm, airy, August evening in South London. The kind of night where memories are made or miseries manifest. You’ve made your way to a friend’s birthday dinner. The drinks are flowing, the sound of amapiano pulsates through the walls, and waiters yell across tables to determine who ordered the lamb kofta with bulgur rice. Speculation over the whereabouts of the birthday girl start to ensue but for some of us, other conversations arise.
Two good friends and I discuss healthy living, gym and sports. In order to protect their identities, I will give them fictitious names for the sake of this post. Let’s call them Nathaniel and Ferdinand. Amid it all, the 75 Hard* Challenge was brought up.
*Just for clarification, we did the 75 Medium Challenge instead of the Hard version which only had one 45-minute workout per day, because we’re busy people.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
After a constant back and forth, and Ferdinand conveniently backing out, Nathaniel and I throw caution (and wisdom) to the wind. Inspired by the results of other backbreaking regimes and the sudden urge to add a dash of unpredictability to our lives, we devise a plan.
Maybe it was the drinks (I don’t drink btw - I’m just narrating). Maybe it was the testosterone. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was just plain stupidity. You would be surprised what a bit of peer pressure and unearthed boredom can do to a fleeting mind? Whatever it was, it worked. Before we knew it, dates were set, apps were downloaded, and promises were made.
We started well. A new Brita Water Filter helped maintain the daily water requirements while a renewed gym membership and a sudden urge to revisit my Year 6 swimming glory days helped with the physical activity component.
For two weeks it was bliss. Tough but bliss. The third week came around and cracks started to show. I went from 75 Hard to 75 Medium to 75 Soft to 75 Liquid. From one 45-minute workout a day to a 45-minute walk to 5k steps a day to strolling to Lidl and back. Standards were slipping, excuses were being made and loopholes were found.
Suddenly we both had other important events that meant we couldn’t fully commit. Work was busy and calories were redundant when the client was paying for lunch. I wasn’t a morning person anymore and it was cruel to subject myself to pseudo-red pill content just to arise from my well-earned slumber.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
There will always be excuses for not showing up, just like there will always be a reason for a lack of progress
23 days. 23 days in, and it all fell apart. I can’t blame anyone but myself. Actually, that’s a lie. Nathaniel, I love you so much bro; but you might have been the worst accountability partner that I’ve ever had the unfortunate pleasure to be stuck with.
If you were my “partner in crime” then I would have been the one to plan the bank heist, carry all the weapons, source the tech stuff, hold the people hostage, break into the vault, carry the cash, clean the money, and share it evenly. You were merely there because the genre requires me to have an accomplice for the plot line.
We could track each other’s progress on the 75 Challenge App but after day three/four, Nat conveniently stopped tracking his. I would reach out to him and ask what was happening, but variations of excuses followed. As they say, alone you go fast, together you go far. But we were never going the distance. All love though.
If you want to see your progress, look at the progress of those around you
We didn’t set strong ground rules from the start. We had forfeits that each one would enact for their inability to complete days. But those changed over time as well. Change is not always good. Word to Zeke and his crème brûlée but sometimes you have to stick to the status quo.
With a lack of partnership and a lack of consistency came a lack of drive. I got bored. My church posted a picture of me on Instagram (below), and I realised that I was seeing results way too early. It wasn’t fun anymore. There was more gain than pain, and the early benefits of hard work outweighed the future results of prolonged endurance.
When the fun stops, stop, as those gambling ads state. When 20 minutes on the treadmill seemed like a humiliation ritual and the words high protein and low calories made me want to jump off the Tower of London, I knew it was the beginning of the end.
It’s the start of the year and I’m sure we’ve all made resolutions, plans and promises. I want to reevaluate what went wrong with my 75 Hard journey and the lessons you can learn from it this year.
Accountability. Adaptations. Apathy.
The Three Horsemen of Unmet Outcomes. If one can control these beats, dare I say they are unstoppable.
That’s it. I don’t have any more to add. I just wanted to say I hated the 75 Hard Challenge; I realised what went wrong and I hope you take the lessons from it to apply to all you do this year.
As I Grow Older, I’ve come to realise that sometimes you don’t need a 300-page book, a 6-week course or a whole-day conference to tell you where you’re falling short. Make sure your accountability is accountabilitying. Don’t adapt unless necessary. Find ways to make it fun and not torturous. Simple.
And no, I won’t be doing this challenge again.
Love, Peace and Blessings. And Happy New Year.
Abs