Last year I decided to start 75 Hard. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a 75-day challenge where you must do two workouts a day, follow a strict diet, drink a gallon of water, read 10 pages of a book, and take a progress photo every single day, no exceptions.
I started it because I wanted to go to the gym regularly and wasn’t seeing much progress in me and I wanted to lose fat and become a better version of myself. I was also someone who never touched a book, so I thought this would help me build that habit too. For almost 8 months I was consistent with the gym waking up early, going to bed early, feeling good about myself (except for the diet a little too hard for me).
But then finals hit. I had 5 courses that semester , a part-time job which was 3 days a week, and I failed an exam which I had studied the hardest for. That really got to me. I already had too much to balance work, gym, and studying all at once.
The only thing I had to overcome was my diet. Me and my friends usually hang out once or twice a week that’s just how we hang out and 75 Hard gave me zero flexibility for it. It’s a win or lose proposition. Miss one thing and you start over from day one. It began to impact my friendships, my temper and my disposition and before long, I couldn’t keep up.
Looking at this through what I read this week, I think the program failed me because it ignored what Self-Determination Theory calls relatedness staying connected to the people around you. It was also completely behaviorist strict rules, no room to adapt. A better design would have given me some autonomy to make it work with my real life instead of treating every exception as a failure.
Now I’m back in the gym training to achieve the same goals. But, I’ve found that motivation is not only a matter of willpower; it’s whether the design works for your lifestyle or you can live in the design for a prolonged period.
References
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2018). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism. In R. West (Ed.), Foundations of learning and instructional design technology. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/behaviorism_cognitivism_constructivism
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68