The perky woman on the internet doing push-ups and making Post It Note charts on her wall says she’s doing “75 Hard”. She lists the rules: two 45-minute work outs a day for 75 days, one of which must be outside; drink 8-litres of water; follow a diet of your choice, no cheat days and no alcohol; take a progress photo each day; and read 10 pages of a self-improvement book. If you skip any of those rules, the clock starts over. You’re back to day one.
My feed scrolls on.
A woman in dirty sweatpants is crying. She looks desperate. She’s on day 50, but her entire family got norovirus. She’s walking laps in her kitchen, anxiously trying to get in her daily workout, but she fell off her diet. She knows she probably has to start over. She’s in agony, stomach in knots, can’t even keep water down, and her kid is vomiting in the bathroom. But she has to do it. She has to read her 10 pages. She has to go outside and take a walk. She doesn’t know what to do. Should she just keep going? Should she start again? She looks tortured. A shiny, blonde woman with a plastic smile stitches her:
“It all builds Resilience! YOU GOT THIS BABE!”
Conquering the mind is the only way to reach your goals, she says. On her own profile, she lifts her shirt, turns and flexes so we can admire her perfectly tanned abs.
“Before this, I was a mess. I was overweight, depressed. 75 Hard changed my life!”
When I Google “75 Hard” it takes me down a rabbit hole of Men’s Health articles. It’s all about Mental Toughness, they say. It’s not really about fitness at all. It’s about Overcoming Your Mind. Overcoming Your Resistance. Mental Resilience. At the end of the rabbit hole, the originator of this torture device, this shrine to Productivity, appears to be an unassuming man named Andy Frisella. A Youtuber and expert in “customer loyalty, creating fanatical culture and building businesses”, whatever that means. He’s written a book called 75 Hard: A Tactical Guide to Winning the War with Yourself. Am I at war with myself? I don’t think I am. Why would I be?
His website features a lot of block capitals and short sentences:
75 HARD IS A TRANSFORMATIVE MENTAL TOUGHNESS PROGRAM
How To Take Complete Control of Your Life in Only 75 Days
…the REAL PROBLEM I had was a lack of mental toughness & discipline
I’d have dismissed it as clickbait, but over a million people have tagged it on Instagram. There are thousands of progress videos on TikTok. What the fuck is this madness? Why would anyone think this was a good idea? I’d laugh at it, but I keep seeing that woman crying on the Internet.
It triggers a visceral anger in me, this compassionless program churning out its shiny blonde robots. I decide not to buy the book. I won’t be doing 75 Hard. I’ll pass on the kind of mental toughness fired in mindless obedience and joyless self-denial.
Remind me again, why are we following rules written by a man with a website in all caps anyway? It didn’t say.
In fact, it doesn’t specify his qualifications in living at all. Is he happy? He doesn’t seem happy. He seems like the kind of person who yells, “damn hippies, ruining our country” out of the window at teenagers smoking weed in the park. What are the quality of his relationships? When’s the last time he laughed? When’s the last time he said “I love you” when it was difficult, and meant it? When’s the last time he let his heart get broken? If, as I suspect, the answer is “not recently”, does he really know anything about resilience? In fact, it seems like what he’s actually selling is self-denial. Conquer the Self! Power Through! Get six pack abs!
No, thanks.
Instead of Powering Through, I will be busy gently listening to my feelings. Welcoming them home like old friends carrying long distance letters with blue air mail stamps, scrawled handwriting in faded ink, and the faintest scent of the perfume of an old lover lingering on their pages. When I move my body (and I will, because I deserve to feel what it means to be me today), I’ll do so in ways which are loving: a long walk where I stop to notice the flowers blooming in cracks in the concrete, which reminds me that I too can thrive in unexpected places; hours spent lying on a board on the ocean, soaking up the sun until I’m warm inside, getting quiet enough to hear the birds chattering, while my paddle makes labyrinthine circles in the waves. I won’t drink 8 litres of water, but I will drink tea on the porch with bare feet on cold mornings. Some days, I might drink wine with friends around a fire in the evening. I’ll make time for kindness. Time for strangers. I’m not going to read 10 pages a day about how to improve my financial investments – no offence if that’s your thing, but please explain how it will make me happier and more fulfilled? Instead, I’ll watch the sun set fire to the sea as it sinks on the horizon. I’ll chase glimmers in the smell of rain, the smoky-peat taste of whisky, and the feel of a lover’s tongue on the hollows and curves of a body I once hated. When I do read, I’ll read stories that remind me the world is full of magic. And I might just use that inspiration to do nothing, to think, to dream. I might use it to make messy art, which hangs crookedly on my walls, splattered with paint, written in joy.
All of which to say, you can keep your 75 Hard. I don’t need it. I’m not at war with my mind. Resilience, to me, sounds like resounding silence. It’s a recipe for self-hatred. For relationships that never quite work out. A song of your sadness. Instead (and I invite you to join me), I’ll embrace my lack of abs and my days full of meaning. I’ll embrace my beautiful, broken, imperfect, and lovely softness.
