“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

James Clear, Atomic Habits

75 Hard – One Year LIVE HARD Program.

Be it a blessing or a curse, I have a bit of an extreme personality - but thankfully this is an extreme program.

I just recently finished up the third and final phase to complete the 75Hard: LIVE HARD program, and I wanted to share my experience and some lessons that I learned.

This is a one year program that starts with 75 days of specific habits, and then adds 3 additional 30 day “phases” with some extra daily actions in subsequent phases.

It amounts to 165 days total over the course of one year (75Hard / 30Day Phase-1 / 30 Day Phase-2 / 30 Day Phase-3).

The daily disciplines are as follows:

• Two 45 minute workouts

• One workout must be outdoors

• Follow a diet

• No alcohol or cheat meals

• Take a progress picture (upload into the 75Hard app to track progress)

• Drink a gallon of water daily

• Read 10 pages of non-fiction

Here's the thing - if you miss ANYTHING on a day, at ANY POINT in the year, you must start completely over at DAY 1.

To guard against this, I set an alarm for 10PM and 11PM every day to make certain that I’d handled my obligations.

Phase-3 added to the above list the following tasks:

• Take a 5 minute cold shower

• Random act of kindness

• Conversation with a stranger

• 8 Power List tasks

Here's what I learned from my each of the tasks throughout my year:

Workouts

The mind can always find a way when a path is required.

It seems impossible at first, but in short order it becomes very manageable. I have come to realize that in life, only after a commitment is made does the how to make it happen become evident. Not before.

The routine was very helpful for me, and became a healthy addiction. However, I have to admit that there were a few instances where it was pure agony to get this outdoor workout done. More than a few times, I’d finish up after 11PM.

I had one travel day with an early morning flight out and a full day of activities. It left me with no other option than to get up at 3AM to get my outdoor workout in before leaving for the airport.

A few workouts also ended up happening during a torrential downpour, and even a few during snowstorms while up at Big Bear Lake.

That said, we find a way or make a way.

Follow a Diet

I opted for the carnivore diet for this 30-day phase. This is the best diet ever! Meat only (including fish and eggs). I’d aim for 180-200 grams of protein daily, and it worked wonders.

I was able to drop 12 lbs. in 30 days (not kidding). I went from an already lean physique at 10.5% body fat all the way down to 7%. It feels like a cheat code. I highly recommend it. After a few days of adaptation, my energy level was on point. (I did a few supplements for some of the supposed deficiencies).

There were a few moments of agony here that I’ll share. Once, my wife was making chocolate chip cookies for our boys, and I thought I was going to lose it. The smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies was like a tractor-beam pulling on me, and I had to physically leave for a bit to break the hypnosis.

There were also a few other family gatherings with some various delicacies that I had to pass on, and not having drinks socially at a few events was tough.

That said, I was thinking through the total time vs. the time in agony. 30 days is 720 hours… and my hours of “temptation” and hating it were about 5-7 hours in total. So the question is, can I endure 5-7 hours out of 720? Yep. Looking at it this way while going through it strengthened my resolve.

Gallon of Water

This was a huge chore for the first week, and then became a non-issue. I found that a 23.5 oz smart water bottle was the ticket for me, as I would pace myself through the day with 5.5 refills and could usually have it all completed by the evening.

There were a few times that I’d get behind and had to cover lots of ground on this task the late evening. That did not make for a good night's sleep with all the bathroom visits.

Rough start. Easy finish.

Alcohol

I drink socially fairly often, so this took a few days adjustment each phase to get past the cravings.

In all candor, one of the reasons that I do this 75 Hard program is to make sure that I CAN remove alcohol. That said, this is hard for the first few days then becomes a non-issue for me. I reread Russ Perry’s book The Sober Entrepreneur as part of my daily reading to add some relevant and positive reinforcement on this front. (I highly recommend it).

Daily Progress Picture

Believe it or not, this one was a mental irritant for me at first, and absorbed lots of mental bandwidth.

Stated plainly, I was overthinking it.

For the first week or so I’d take a bunch of pictures, trying to make it look better somehow. Go figure.

After a while it became a 10 second activity and an easy check mark. (You have the option in the app to upload directly into the app and not have it shared to your photo stream by the way).

This was another example of how something can be such a mental hurdle at first, but then become so effortless. I can’t believe that I was actually stressing over this at the beginning.

Looking back at the start and finish picture results was very encouraging, and it's a stark visual testament to the power of incremental gains compounding over time.

5 Minute Cold Shower (Phase 1 & 3)

At first, I dreaded this. And I mean DREADED!

After an outdoor workout in the snow up at Big Bear Lake and coming home to the cabin, the only thing I wanted was nice warm water - taking that ice cold shower was about the coldest I have ever been.

Yet at the same time there is something so unbelievably invigorating about an ice-cold shower. It’s hard to explain, but I was on a high after that, and it has become a healthy addiction.

It's now a part of my everyday practice, and I actually kind of crave it. I feel more alive. That just may be a forever thing now for me. (To my cold plunge friends… I get it now. This is on my list...)

Conversation with a Stranger (Phase-3)

This was fun. I am a borderline introvert/extrovert by nature, but over the decades I've made it a habit to talk to people in all settings.

I wouldn't say this task is easy, but it's much easier for me now than it has been in the past based on decades of rewiring.

That said, this task challenged me to take these interactions to a new level - not just a quick hello, but a more engaging exchange.

I got quite good at asking questions that would lead to further conversation as a way to work through this challenge.

Reading Non-Fiction

This is a habit that I will keep forever. 10 pages a day felt like chore at first, but it's not overly difficult unless I put I off until nighttime when I'm starting to doze off. Most of time I’d knock this out early in the morning.

Overall, I found that after reading I’d feel and think better than before, especially when doing this as part of my AM routine. That was the real lesson for me - it gets all the mental cylinders firing right out of the gate.

I read a few complete books, and sections of some others. (The Sober Entrepreneur, The Psychology of Money, Living Untethered, Atomic Habits, and Who Not How) These are repeats for me since I decided this year to spend the majority of my reading time going back through books that have shaped me in the past.

It’s amazing to reread a book and be blown away by an insight that I completely missed on the first pass.

A saying I heard years ago comes to mind: “No man ever steps in the same river twice. It is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

Random Act of Kindness

This was really fun to do, and an exciting challenge to seek out the opportunity daily.

I always have made it a habit to go a bit out of my way to help others, but this was different. It took me intentionally looking out for opportunities every day, and after a while I began to see them everywhere.

The acts ranged from holding the door for someone, to buying a stranger's coffee, to purchasing a meal, to shoveling the snow from the neighbor’s driveway up in Big Bear.

In fact, I was once on the verge of FAILING the entire 75 Hard challenge one day as I couldn't find an opportunity to interact with a stranger. We were snowed in up at our cabin in Big Bear, and I hadn't yet found an occasion to do my act of kindness.

But sure enough, with a clear target, the mind will see a path.

I realized that my 76 year old neighbor doesn't have a plow service, so I grabbed my 15 year old son Caleb and we spent an hour shoveling his driveway. I used to do this as a kid living in New York and Connecticut to earn a few bucks, so I was able to share the experience with my son.

It was an exhausting hour, but deeply rewarding, and I was able to end the Random Act of Kindness portion of the entire Live Hard program on a high note.

That’s it for now. If you have read this far, I want to say thank you! This is my second time through the LIVE HARD one-year program, and I wanted to make sure to share my experience with anybody interested.

I believe that I am 100% responsible for my life and that life is infinitely richer when I bring my best, daily, to everything that I do.

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

This program helps provide a path, a system, and a structure for building healthy habits that can and will last a lifetime.

If you are considering the 75Hard or LIVE HARD programs, or are currently going through them, I hope that sharing my experience helped provide some perspective and encouragement.

For those of you that want to give this a try or are interested in learning more, I welcome your comments and questions, and I'm happy to help in any way I can.

Live Hard.