Read time: 6 minutes
How do you typically like to start a new year? For many people, the holidays bring more calories and less structure than we’re used to, and by January we’re ready for a change from all that change.
This has been the case with me for a very long time. I thrive on routine, and one of my superpowers is the ability to make new habits, break old ones, and train myself in effective ways. So I like to use January to check in with, and re-set the tone of, my life in general.
Last year in my quest for a new way to challenge myself in the coming year, I found a challenge called 75 Hard, which I felt was definitely on the right track for me but a bit too rigid. I’m not trying to become a Navy Seal, I’m just trying to be stronger, sharper, and leaner than I was before. So I changed it up a bit, and you can read here what I came up with for last year.
Until a few days ago I hadn’t put much thought into how to start 2025, but when I did, it took little time at all to get excited about another 75 Strong challenge.
Since its debut in 2020, the 75 Hard challenge has been a popular mental toughness program, among certain subsets and personality types. While it undoubtedly offers structure and discipline, I feel 75 Hard’s rigid approach is not sustainable or even healthy for tons of people who could really benefit from a program like it. But it’s unnecessarily tough, to the point that it becomes exclusionary. There is something so gross about that to me.
So I created 75 Strong, a modified version that maintains the core benefits of 75 Hard while promoting sustainable personal growth for more of us.
75 Hard vs. 75 Strong
The original 75 Hard challenge goes like this:
- Follow a specific diet of your choosing with zero alcohol and no cheat meals
- Complete two 45-minute workouts daily (one outdoors)
- Drink one gallon of water daily
- Read 10 pages of personal growth nonfiction daily
- Take a progress picture every day
- Miss any of these 5 components, and the 75 day clock starts over from day one
The 75 Strong Framework
The 75 Strong challenge maintains the fundamental goal of personal improvement while acknowledging individual differences and promoting real, sustainable, personal growth. Here’s how it differs from 75 Hard:
1. Nutrition and Diet
- Choose any evidence-based nutrition plan that aligns with your personal goals
- Maintain consistency while learning from occasional deviations
- Focus on understanding your relationship with food rather than strict adherence to the plan
- Eliminate alcohol to experience its effects on your physical and mental well-being
2. Physical Activity
- Engage in challenging physical activity 6 days per week
- Customize duration and intensity to your fitness level
- Include one active rest day weekly for recovery and injury prevention
- Progress gradually to build sustainable habits
3. Hydration
- Focus on consistent, appropriate hydration for your body
- Consider factors like climate, activity level, and individual needs
- Monitor physical cues rather than forcing a specific volume
- Adjust intake based on exercise intensity and environmental conditions
4. Personal Development
- Dedicate one hour daily to self-improvement
- Choose from various learning methods (books, podcasts, courses)
- Focus on quality engagement rather than arbitrary page counts
- Align learning with personal goals and interests
5. Self-Reflection
- Document this time through journaling as opposed to physical progress photos
- Focus on holistic progress (mental, physical, emotional)
- Celebrate small wins and learning opportunities
- Maintain consistency without perfectionism
Why This Approach Works Better
- Emphasizes sustainable habit formation over arbitrary rules
- Accommodates different fitness levels and starting points
- Promotes mindful decision-making rather than rigid compliance
- Builds lasting behavioral change through deeper self-understanding
Action Items to Start Your Own 75 Strong Challenge
Interested in starting 2025 with a 75 day intensive of your own? Here are the four main components:
- Select your nutrition approach. How and what will you be eating for the first 75 days of 2025? You could just add a particular food (or foods) to your existing diet, or follow a plan like intermittent fasting.
- Plan your exercise schedule. Where to work out, what you’ll be doing, and at what time of day you’ll do it are considerations.
- Choose personal development resources. Podcasts work well for me but you might try books, radio shows, YouTube, or in-person classes. A weekly therapy session would be a great personal development activity, as would a couples retreat or a yoga retreat with friends. Maybe you’ve always wanted to develop a meditation practice; studying meditation could be how you spend some (or all) of your personal development time each day.
- Set up a tracking system. Get yourself a 2025 planner and some pens (I like a 10 pack of colors. I jot down thoughts throughout the day, so different colors help me delineate different thoughts). A simple notebook and a Bic pen would be great too. You do you, it doesn’t have to be fancy. Write down how you slept each night, what you did for workouts each day, tally your water intake, write down your thoughts and document what you did for self-growth that day.
Remember: The goal isn’t perfection but progress. 75 Strong encourages you to challenge yourself while respecting your body’s needs and limitations. It asks you to check in regularly with yourself, and act according to your findings, which may run counter to your stated goal. For example, your body may need a rest day when the calendar says it’s not time. By acknowledging the need and caring for your body appropriately, you’re making big self-love progress. This balanced approach leads to more sustainable results and genuine personal growth.
Keys To Strong Success
- Start where you are, not where you think you should be
- Focus on consistency over intensity
- Listen to your body’s signals
- Adjust the framework to fit your life while maintaining the spirit of the challenge
- Acknowledge and appreciate your progress without requiring perfection
I really like the 75 Strong challenge. With a couple of tweaks, it transforms 75 Hard’s unnecessarily rigid structure into an opportunity for genuine personal growth and sustainable habit formation. I have proven it to myself throughout 2024: when you emphasize mindful, measured progress over strict adherence to arbitrary rules, you’re more likely to complete the full 75 days with enthusiasm, and even maintain your new habits long-term. I hope you like it too.
This weekend as we prepare to usher in another new year, I’m setting myself up for another 75 days (and beyond) of success, while walking myself down 2024’s memory lane. One of the quiet gifts of keeping up with the practice of taking a few moments to journal each day, is that upon finishing the year, you have written a book for yourself… about yourself… all by yourself…
And you get a chance to see that indeed it’s been quite a year, and there you were through it all.
Peace and love to you, wherever this message finds you.
