If you’re a follower of me on Instagram you might have seen the challenge I undertook earlier this year – 75Hard.
It’s a 75-day challenge that requires you to follow these simple daily rules:
- Follow a diet. Drink a gallon (3.78 litres) of water.
- Complete two 45-minute workouts – one must be outside.
- Take a progress photo every day – you can keep this to yourself.
- Read 10 pages of a personal development or entrepreneurial book – audiobooks don’t count.
- No alcohol or cheat meals.
- You have until you go to sleep to complete the day.
- Miss one of the above and you’re back to Day 1.
The idea of this challenge isn’t for fitness or weight-loss, although that’s a by-product of it. This is a mindset challenge. And, although I didn’t drop a day, it was super hard.
You could say I was lucky enough that some of the days were during lockdown but that wasn’t always great. That was a busy time with the kids at home.
Being able to have until you go to sleep to complete the day was useful. One time we had friends over and I didn’t get to start my second 45-minute workout until 12:15am. There’s a photo of me at 12:57am completing the workout and realising I hadn’t read my 10 pages for the day. I didn’t get to sleep until after 2am that morning. Still, I got it done.
The purpose of this email though is to reflect on what’s happened since then. The challenge really worked for me. I liked having something to complete each day. Not having that goal means I’ve lapsed into doing one 45 minute workout a day at varying times of the day. That’s not great. It feels like I’m going backwards fitness-wise.
I haven’t drunk since then and I don’t miss it. I’m contemplating never touching alcohol again. That’s an interesting conversation to have with people. There are widely varying attitudes to that. Especially from parents of young children. Lol!
Mindset wise I feel sure there’s been a positive change that isn’t going backwards through lack of the challenge. But, there’s something missing when I don’t have a challenge like this. I believe it’s the lack of accountability to something bigger than myself.
There’s a Phase 1, 2 and 3 of the challenge I think I will start but after them what next?
That’s where I’m focusing some thought. Because that feeling of being adrift without the challenge is odd. It’s true that humans are genetically programmed to go after goals. It’s from our time as hunter-gatherers and without a goal, we lack focus.
So, the next step for me is to work out what can replace the challenge when it’s done. I’ve instilled some excellent habits and improved my resilience but I still feel something is missing.
Maybe that’s something that’s programmed into us as well. The asking of ourselves, “What’s next?”. Is it there to help keep us progressing to being the best version of ourselves? I think so.
I’ll end today with a question for you, what are you doing to challenge yourself?
Have a great week.
Glenn Edley
Quote for the week
Life which is lived without zest and adventure is not life at all.
― F. A. Mitchell-Hedges