The 13 Lessons I Learned From Doing #75Hard in 2023
For the first time in my life… I have visible abs.
Honestly, I feel embarrassed to even share these pictures because of the excess belly fat and hanging skin that I still have.
I still don't really like how I look...
BUT… you know what?
It's major progress in the right direction.
At my worst, I used to weigh 260+ lbs.
That was me in my 20’s.
I’m telling you this to say that:
Never in a million years did I think I could EVER have abs.
And a decade later, in my 30’s…
...after losing 114+ lbs over the last 10 years...
I do.
And that’s not even the best part.
The best part is that I have forged myself into someone who:
- Produces the result
- Does what he says
- And, leads by example.
“Leading by example isn’t the best way to lead. It’s the only way to lead.”
- Vince Lombardi
The physical transformation is just a byproduct of the intangible results I have received from doing The 75Hard Program.
It’s a mental toughness program built by Andy Frisella.
(Check out the his Podcast episode where he talks about 75Hard and the LiveHard program: Apple Podcast Link, Spotify Link.)
The fitness outcomes are just a bonus, on top of the mental toughness this program helped me create.
I started on June 12, 2023 and finished last week on Aug. 25, 2023.
75 Hard. 75 Days.
Zero compromise.
If you're curious about my results:
1) I went from being 165lbs to 148.8lbs (lost 16.2lbs).
And 2) I went from being 19.9% body fat to 16.1% (lost 3.8% body fat).
The program is designed to turn you into someone who produces the result at an undeniable level.
Not one explanation needed for why something wasn’t done, the way it needed to be.
This is actually a skill to develop, it’s not a trait.
A skill is anything you can practice and get better at.
Discipline, mental toughness, fortitude, grit, integrity, confidence — these are all skills that you can practice and improve upon.
That’s what the program teaches you.
It’s the perfect example of learning by doing.
Today I want to share with you the lessons I learned by doing 75Hard, in the order that I learned them.
Consider this a 75Hard Benefits Timeline, if you will.
Let’s begin.
Week 1 - 2 (Days 1-14):
The Before State
When I started 75Hard, I had zero confidence in myself.
I knew I had integrity and that I could do better… but I didn’t know how.
And, truthfully, I would only stick to my diet about half the time.
I’d go to the gym 4-5 times a week but I’d easily skip it if I had the chance to.
And (worst of all) I would create a daily To Do list of 3-5 items…
…and wouldn’t do any of them more than half the time.
The truth is: I no longer believed that I could achieve anything.
I felt hopeless. Like a loser. Like a… fraud.
And I hated myself.
In these first 2 weeks, I just did 75Hard purely because I ran out of ideas for what I could do to get my life back on track.
But then something changed.
Week 3 (Days 15-21):
“I feel like I am in control of my life again.”
I actually wrote that sentence down on Day 21.
I felt a sense of pride because:
For 21 days straight, I said I would do something and I did it. Every. Single. Time.
No compromises.
That restored my confidence.
And the major lesson I learned was this:
Lesson #1: You are in control of your momentum. You can build it on demand.
Before, I had been the guy who would catch “hot streaks” and produce results.
I would win sometimes.
For the first time in my life, I realized that there is no “catching” momentum.
There is only creating Momentum on Demand.
And I had just learned how to create it.
That’s how you win most of the time.
If not all.
This realization changed everything for me.
Because I now started taking things a lot more seriously.
I could see results appear in my fitness as well.
I would say I had been stagnant for the last 4 months.
In 3 weeks I produced results, and that motivated the f#ck outta me.
Week 4 (Days 22-28):
Winning All The Time
Lesson #2: “I’ve learned how to win deliberately again.”
That’s what I wrote down on Day 28.
It’s because my daily To Do list was now getting done 6/7 days a week on average.
And the one day that I wouldn't do everything on my list, it was because I chose to not do it that day. And I chose to go do something else.
This was usually something social that I chose to do deliberately.
It rarely happened that I didn’t do what I said I would.
Rarely.
But it did happen.
And I learned another major lesson through this experience:
Lesson #3: Nobody is perfect. But perfection should be the goal.
It’s paradoxical but it is the best way to look at things.
It’s guaranteed that you are going to screw up — just by law of averages.
So we know we can’t expect perfection from ourselves.
BUT… we can define what perfection looks like and aim to hit it.
If we hit it 8 or 9 times out 10, that’s pretty damn good isn’t it?
Having a win rate of 80% or 90% is incredible!
Perfection is the ideal goal.
Go for it while knowing that you won’t hit it all the time.
Ironically, operating from this perspective massively increases the chances that you’re going to be Winning All The Time.
Week 5 (Days 29-35):
No Justifications.
It’s about no justifications. Zero.
Lesson #4: If anything requires an explanation for why it wasn't done the way it’s supposed to be done… it wasn’t done right. Period.
How many people do you know right now that operate with this standard?
It’s normal to cut corners.
It’s normal to do good enough.
And it’s normal to make excuses for why something wasn’t done the way it’s supposed to be.
And that’s exactly why normal sucks.
Even you don’t like normal and “the ordinary”.
We are entrepreneurs.
By default, we are extra-ordinary.
Aka not normal.
So then why would we do things “normal people” do?
It’s normal to make justifications.
But the truth is:
Lesson #5: The results speak for themselves. I don’t have to say anything.
A ‘No Justifications’ attitude is a requirement for producing results at an undeniable level.
You saw my picture at the top. It speaks for itself.
I don’t have to say anything.
And that led me to realize my next lesson:
Lesson #6: There’s an inverse correlation between Results and Talk.
The more you do of one, the less you get to do of the other.
Read that again.
If you want more results, you get to do less talk.
If you do more talk, you get less results.
It’s really that simple.
Talk is cheap. Always was and always will be.
But the important thing here to note is that:
You can chose which of those you want.
And then just do that instead.
Week 6-7 (Days 36-49):
“I believe in myself again”
It took me 7 full weeks to be able to do that.
After 49 days of continuous effort — day in and day out — I finally believed in myself again.
I could see the finish line.
I was almost at Day 50 — 2/3rds of the way to 75 days.
I had started thinking about how I would celebrate finishing 75Hard.
At first, I was scared of thinking about it because I thought that if I focus on the end result instead of the process ahead of me…
I would lose.
But then the realization hit me:
Lesson #7: How can I win if I can’t even imagine myself winning?
If I can’t picture myself winning and am too afraid of even thinking about it…
…how the hell do I expect myself to win?
If anything, thinking about ‘how I’m going to celebrate when I’m done’ increased my motivation because I wanted to earn this celebration now!
And I started to believe 100% that I could do it.
I didn’t doubt myself anymore.
I was losing weight and could see some ab definition on myself for the first time in my life.
And that’s where my self-belief and confidence was completely restored.
I had just achieved something that I never thought I could actually do.
And it felt amazing!
But the real lesson behind this took me one more week to learn.
Week 8 (Days 50-56):
Efforts Produce Results.
Lesson #8: The more effort you put in, the more results you get out.
Efforts and Results are directly proportional to each other.
It was no longer: If I put in the effort, I produce results…
…it was now:
When I put in the effort, I produce results.
And it was undeniable.
This was true for my physical fitness.
For my business. Work. Social Life. You name it.
Wherever I put in effort, I was reaping results.
And this led me to perhaps the most important lesson I learned in my entire 75Hard Journey.
Week 9 (Days 59-63):
Momentum Carries You Forward.
I learned this through my physical transformation.
In the beginning of week 9, I had brought myself to 16.X% body fat.
I have never been this low in my life.
I enjoyed seeing this but my tracking day is on Sunday (end of the week).
So I decided that I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing and celebrate on Sunday.
When Sunday came, I remember I hopped on the scale.
I was ready to celebrate me being at 16.X% body fat, but something else happened…
…The scale read 15.9%.
I just stared at it in silence.
And then the realization hit me.
I was doing so well that by the time I sat down to celebrate a milestone, I had already hit the next one.
Lesson #9: The momentum has carried me forward much faster than I thought it would.
I finally saw the true power of momentum.
The only thing I needed to do now was not f#ck it up.
As you’re probably thinking, this level of execution did finally take a toll on me.
Week 10 (Days 64-70):
Tired AF!
I remember this week distinctly because after 63+ days of 75Hard…
…I had finally started to feel exhausted.
I felt like I was running on fumes.
I’m 2+ months in — 63 days out of 75.
And I’m dead tired.
What do I do?
Should I quit?
Is this my limit?
Did I give it everything I got?
Was this not meant for me?
These were the type of things I was thinking.
But you know what?
Even though I was thinking all this… I just kept moving forward.
I figured that I’ll keep going until I can’t anymore.
And when one more week passed…
When Week 10 was done, I realized that I learned my next lesson:
Lesson #10: Being tired is part of the process. It’s baked into winning.
You don’t stop cuz you’re tired.
You figure out a way to keep going and produce the damn result.
This is exactly what Tim Grover talks about in his latest book W1nning.
And I learned this lesson through experience.
You’re not supposed to stop cuz you’re tired, you’re supposed to figure out how to keep moving forward.
And still make it happen.
That’s winning.
Final Week (Days 71-75):
I Fell Extremely Sick…
I hated this.
With the amount of momentum I had, I felt like I could push myself extra hard in this last week and try to get a full 6-pack.
I mean, I already 4… no reason I can’t hit 6!
But God (universe / life / whatever) had other ideas.
They decided that my final week is the week that they want to test me the hardest.
I fell so insanely sick that I had to take time off work.
My mind literally didn’t function.
I couldn’t think or focus on anything.
On top of that, I had a fever. I was in pain. I couldn’t breathe properly.
I had managed to catch the good ol’ flu on Day 70 out of 75.
Fuck.
Well, I made it this far… no reason I can’t make it another 5 days, right?
I remember waking up, feeling like I’m about to die of pain.
Taking some meds… and hitting the gym.
If being extremely tired didn’t stop me, sickness wasn’t going to either.
I dialled down my plan of going “ultra hard this week” and decided to just do my best.
And I did.
I made it through the last 5 — hardest — days.
There were 3 lessons that I learned in this final week:
Lesson #11: Regardless of the circumstances, you have to control what you can control.
My circumstances were less than ideal — to say the least.
But I still chose to do what I could do.
That allowed me to get through and still win even though I was super sick.
Lesson #12: “The thing that worked was: doing what’s required, every f#cking day.”
No amount of thinking, planning, strategizing about my goals produced a result.
But doing what’s required, did.
It literally didn’t matter what I said.
As long as I did what was required, the result produced itself.
And the final lesson I learned is probably something you wouldn't expect:
Lesson #13: I could’ve done better.
I achieved a lifelong dream of mine — to have visible abs.
And all it took was 75 days of consistent action.
I’m 34 right now. I’ve been dreaming of having abs since I was in high school — around 16-17 years old.
I never thought I could do it.
The realization I came to was:
If I could achieve a lifelong dream of mine by just following the process without knowing whether or not it was going to produce the result…
Imagine what I can do now that I know that following the process produces results.
That’s the main thought that’s bouncing around in my head right now.
I did about half of 75Hard purely on faith.
Without knowing if it’s going to work or not.
Now I know for a fact that it works.
So what am I going to do now?
I’m going to keep going.
And I’m going to do the entire LiveHard program this year.
As a matter of fact, I’m on Day 5 of LiveHard Phase 1 right now.
To Recap (TL;DR)
Here are the 13 Lessons I learned by doing 75Hard in 2023 (in weekly order).
If you’re going to do 75Hard, consider this a 75Hard Benefits Timeline of what I hope you will also learn through your experience.
75Hard Benefits Timeline
Lesson # | Week # | Lesson |
---|---|---|
1 | Week 1-3 | You are in control of your momentum. You can build it on demand. |
2 | Week 4 | “I’ve learned how to win deliberately again.” |
3 | Week 4 | Nobody is perfect. But perfection should be the goal. |
4 | Week 5 | If anything requires an explanation for why it wasn't done the way it’s supposed to be… it wasn’t done right. Period. |
5 | Week 5 | The results speak for themselves. I don’t have to say anything. |
6 | Week 5 | There’s an inverse correlation between Results and Talk. |
7 | Week 6-7 | How can I win if I can’t even imagine myself winning? |
8 | Week 8 | The more effort you put in, the more results you get out. |
9 | Week 9 | The momentum has carried me forward much faster than I thought it would. |
10 | Week 10 | Being tired is part of the process. It’s baked into winning. |
11 | Week 11 | Regardless of the circumstances, you have to control what you can control. |
12 | Week 11 | “The thing that worked was: doing what’s required, every f#cking day.” |
13 | Week 11 | I could’ve done better. |
Conclusion
It was a bitter-sweat feeling when I finished 75Hard.
Because while I was happy for my accomplishment, I was hungry for more.
I don’t want to stop.
I am operating on all cylinders, and for all intents and purposes…
I am CRUSHING life right now.
75Hard changed my life, mentality and perspective.
And the truth is:
I’m just getting started.
I hope you do too.
Let me know if you're going to do the #75Hard Program as well 🙂