I’ve never made such radical progress toward my goals in such a condensed time period.
I’ve put on 3kg of muscle, hit a lifetime best on my back squat, taken ten minutes off my 10k run, and taken 5 shots off my golf handicap.
In just 75 days
All while maintaining my goals for the business and not losing my marriage or my happiness.
In this blog post, I’m going to teach you how I did that, and what I learned along the way, including…
How I hit these goals without aiming at them
How I got through the hardest parts of this challenge
The key reframe which allowed my to succeed
Why I would do it all again
Find Accountability
It all started on a call with one of my clients, Jackson.
I’d been coaching Jackson on developing discipline for a few months, and it was time to put his new skillset to the test.
He came up with the idea of executing 75 Hard. The challenge is 75 days long, and every single day, you must…
Hit 2 workouts (each one 45 minutes or more, and one must be outside)
Drink 4.5 litres of water
Stick to a diet, any diet
Drink no alcohol
Read 10 pages of non-fiction
If you screw up one part of this just once, you must start again from day 1.
I’d been seeking a new challenge as I felt I was getting a little soft. I’d been taking life too easy. What’s more, I knew accountability is a key step in creating change, so I wanted to support Jackson.
And this is the first super valuable lesson you can take from this challenge:
Accountability is key. There were multiple times when I came close to failing, but the knowledge that I was accountable to Jackson, and him to me, kept me in the challenge.
If you're going to do something tough, it’s difficult to be accountable to yourself only.
Find someone to suffer with you.
Obsess Over The Process
For both of us, the booze and the non-fiction were easy as we were already hitting them.
I also tasked Jackson with executing daily mindset training for that period too (anything from journaling to visualisation to breathwork and much more).
If you look back at the daily objectives, you’ll notice how none of them are outcome based. None of them had an end objective other than consistency itself
That is the primary reason I got such ridiculous results: I never even thought about the outcome.
But 4x per week, I’d hit a CrossFit session. 2-3x per week I’d be playing golf or getting a lesson. I made the rest up with a bunch of running, yomping (or rucking), yoga, and mobility sessions.
And that compounds of time.
So the second lesson here is Obsess Over The Process.
When all you think about is the outcome, you magnify the distance between you and attaining it. It feels so far away. Hindrances seem catastrophic.
When the process itself becomes the goal, your goals take care of themselves.
When Problems Arise, Focus On The Mind
About 60 days in, Jackson got Covid.
This threatened to derail the whole challenge for him & make him start again.
It was a cruel twist of fate as he felt awful. Just the idea of working out was appalling to him.
We exchanged a few voice notes and I reminded him of the reason we started: he wanted to develop discipline and toughness.
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