Chances are, by now, you have heard of the 75 Hard Challenge. Started several years ago by 1st Phorm’s Andy Frisella, it is meant to be a 75-day mental and physical challenge.

And let me tell you, it’s no joke! This challenge is exactly what Andy said - a mental and physical challenge! I’m more than halfway through the challenge, and I know a lot of people started it up this month, so I wanted to share 10 tips for 75 Hard Challenge success.

The 75 Hard Challenge Rules:

Daily you must complete these five tasks:

1. Stick to a diet.
   • This must include no alcohol and no cheat meals.
   • You can pick any diet you want - that’s on you.
2. Read 10 pages of a physical non-fiction book daily.
   • audiobooks and ebooks sadly do not count.
3. Take a progress pic.
4. Drink a gallon of water.
5. Complete two 45-minute workouts.
   • one of these must be completed outside - no exceptions.
   • the workouts cannot be completed back-to-back.

If you miss, skip, or modify even one of the steps on a given day, you start your 75-day count over again from day 1! PS I had to do this after my first week thanks to a killer migraine that had me in bed for the whole day.

Curious about my results after the first 20 days? You guessed it, there’s a blog post for that. In full disclosure… I didn’t follow my own advice and messed up on Day 46. I can’t re-start right now because of timing, but it’s likely I’ll give it a try again later this year.

Maybe you think all of that sounds do-able. Or maybe you are having some doubts but are willing to give it a try. Either way, below you’ll find some helpful tips for success when it comes to the 75 Hard Challenge.

8 Tips for 75 Hard Challenge Success:

One: Take it ONE day at a time.

Don’t look at the 75 days ahead of you, or even the month or week ahead of you. Focus on today. What do you need to do today to win the day?

If you take nothing else away from this post, I hope you’ll take this nugget! It’s really the only way to crush 75 Hard.

I learned this tip really early on. After I needed to restart because of a migraine, Thanksgiving fell on day 4! When the week started I was overwhelmed at the idea of skipping pecan pie and pumpkin pie and beer on Thanksgiving day. But then Thanksgiving came around and I sat at the table and realized today I didn’t need to have pecan pie. There would be other opportunities and other Thanksgiving feasts. From then on I stopped looking ahead and worrying about how I was going to navigate a day that was yet to come.

Two: Write down the 5 requirements and place them somewhere visible.

I have these written on sticky notes on my closet door. That way I see them every morning when I’m getting dressed and each evening when I’m wrapping up the day. That way, I get two reminders of what I needed to accomplish that day. In the morning I look at them as a reminder. In the evenings I look at them as a checklist to confirm completion.

Three: Attach the reading to an established habit.

If you aren’t already in the habit of reading daily, attach the reading to something that is already an established habit in your daily routine. For instance, I attached the reading to my morning vitamin routine. Now I take the vitamins and then immediately sit down to read my pages before doing anything else that morning.

This is called habit stacking (according to James Clear’s book Atomic Habits), and honestly, it is a game-changer when it comes to developing new habits of any kind.

Four: Drink your gallon of water by 3pm.

The first week of the 75 Hard Challenge my water consumption was all over the map. The first day I was done by noon - so worried about getting in all the ounces that I went a little crazy that morning. The next day I tried to space things out and ended up needing to guzzle 30 ounces just before bed. Now I’ve got a routine that had me done by 3pm most days. That way I am giving myself a little grace period if the day got off track, but I’m also ensuring that my night isn’t a choppy mess of waking up to go to the bathroom constantly.

Five: Take the progress pic at the start of a workout.

The progress pic is the one most likely to be forgotten. It’s so small and seemingly insignificant. But, if you skip it you need to start over. So you don’t want to skip it. One day I was in bed, nearly asleep and then remembered the progress pic. I jumped out of bed and took it in my pjs because I was NOT going to start over on that little technicality.

After that I’ve made it a habit to take my progress pic at the start of my afternoon workout. That way it is part of the getting ready routine, and it taken in the same place day after day.

Six: Create a routine.

There are days when completing the 5 tasks is easy as pie. Those are the days that look pretty similar and my routine can be followed. I read in the morning after vitamins. I complete the water by 3pm. I do my first workout at 4pm and my second workout around 8pm. It’s easy and predictable.

When you create a routine you take a lot of the guesswork and the worry about getting it all in out of the equation. With a routine, all you need to do is follow the script - no mental gymnastics necessary.

Seven: Plan for the unusual.

Even with an established routine, there are going to be days that don’t follow the usual script. For the most part, we can foresee when those days might occur - weekends, holidays, travel, etc… When you know the day is not going to go as usual, take a moment to plan out how and when you will fit in each of the 5 items. Without a plan, you’re likely to miss one or be up late trying to get in both workouts non-consecutively.

This is where I messed up. I was up in Chicago for a week of business meetings. I had three back-to-back meetings one day, and then a family commitment in the evening which left me little time to get everything in. I ended up getting to the end of the day with 10 pages, 1 workout, and half a gallon still to drink. Fail!

Eight: Begin Again - right away!

Most people bomb this challenge at least once in the process. Some have to re-start multiple times. Whether you messed up once or five times, the best way to complete it is to start again right away. If you give yourself a couple of days off before restarting, the chances you will actually restart become less and less. Don’t go ham on all the stuff your diet restricts for a couple of days. Get right back to it!

There you have it! My 8 tips for 75 Hard Challenge Success.