3 Takeaways From 75 Hard

Perhaps you've heard of the popular 75 Hard challenge (if not, you'll hear a quick overview in the video). I decided to join the "fun" a few months back and am so glad I did. It was as much a physical challenge as it was a time management challenge. Here are a few of my biggest takeaways from the experience and how they can apply to both our work and personal lives.

• Read the video transcript

  Well folks, I am three days away from completing the 75 Hard Challenge. If you aren't familiar with 75 Hard, I'll give you a quick overview.

  So for 75 days straight, you are required to complete a set list of tasks and if you miss any one of those on any given day, you start over all the way back to day one. Those tasks include drinking one gallon of water a day, completing two 45-minute workouts, and one of those workouts, at least one of them needs to be outside, reading 10 pages of a non-fiction book each day, no alcohol during the 75 days, and following some sort of diet of your choice during this time period.

  So it's pretty intensive and it has really been an amazing experience. I've had several takeaways from the experience and I want to share three of them with you today. Three takeaways that I believe can really be applicable in our work as well.

  The first one is, it is so important for people to know what it is we are working on. In this 75 HARD journey, first of all, I've been doing it with my husband, which has been so great to just walk through it together. We've been doing it with some other friends as well. My coaches at the gym know that I've been doing it. I have been surrounded by people who know what I have committed to and who are holding me accountable to it and encouraging me along the way. If I tried to step into this secretly without telling anybody what I was doing, it would've been so much harder to stick with it.

  I don't know how often I am working with a coaching client who is working on something or is struggling with something and they come to me, the third party resource, to share it and get help, which is absolutely a great thing to do, that's why I'm here. But nobody else around them on a daily basis actually knows that they're wanting to work on this or knows that they're struggling with this. And I am not meeting with them every single day. The people around you need to know what it is that you are striving toward, what you are working on so that they can support you in it and hold you accountable on a regular basis. So who knows what it is you are working on, working toward, or struggling with?

  The second takeaway is that you can only control what you can control, right? We cannot always control our environment, but we can always control how we show up in it. There were many days where the weather did not comply with what I wanted it to for my outdoor workout, but guess what? I could still control how I showed up in it. I could still control that I chose to go out and complete that outdoor workout.

  Maybe there's something going on in your organization, an org change, maybe a team dynamic, maybe a work assignment, maybe a difficult boss, something about your work environment right now that is bothersome that is not what you would choose for yourself, you may not be able to control it, but you can control how you show up in it.

  And then the last takeaway that I will share is that really, when it comes down to it, it's not a matter of having enough time, it's a matter of priority. You've probably heard that phrase before.

  If we are constantly giving the excuse that I just don't have enough time to do X, Y, or Z, I would challenge you to reconsider and recognize that it is a matter of not prioritizing it, not so much a matter of not having enough time. What is it that you want more time for and how are you prioritizing accordingly?

  There were many days where I was waking up super early or staying up late to complete my tasks, and I made that a priority. In fact, quick side story. During the challenge, we actually took our girls on a week-long trip to Universal Studios in Florida. And so for five days straight, we had a park hopper pass and we were spending full days in the parks and we wanted them to have a great vacation. And so rather than partway through the days saying, oh, we gotta step away and go complete a workout, girls, my husband and I were waking up early and staying up late to complete our tasks. One could have said we just didn't have enough time to do it that week, but we chose to make it a priority. And in fact, we prioritized the girls' time first and then figured out how to make the other tasks get completed in the other hours. It's not a matter of time, it's a matter of priority.

  So I hope you feel encouraged by these takeaways. My hope is that I'll continue to learn from them and apply them moving forward. And if you have any interest in 75 Hard I'd be happy to share more details as well.