75 Hard Alternatives: Realistic Challenges That Still Build Grit

The best 75 Hard alternatives keep what makes the challenge work, a short list of daily tasks you commit to in advance, and change the parts that don’t fit your life. Below are six with clear rules: a 75 Soft-style version, a 30-day version, three hard things of your own, a 66-day habit challenge, a weekly-minimum plan and a bare-minimum floor for hard seasons. First, here are the official 75 Hard rules, so you know exactly what you’re adjusting.

The official 75 Hard rules

75 Hard was created by Andy Frisella, who describes it as a mental toughness program. On his site, the rules are five tasks done every day for 75 days with “0 compromise and 0 substitutions” (Frisella, 2024):

1. Follow a diet geared toward your goals, with no alcohol and no cheat meals.
2. Do two workouts a day, each at least 45 minutes long, and one of them outside, whatever the weather.
3. Drink a gallon of water. It has to be plain water, with no sweeteners, fruit or carbonation.
4. Read at least 10 pages of a non-fiction book that helps you improve. Audiobooks don’t count.
5. Take a progress photo.

If you miss any task on any day, you start over on Day 1, whether you were on day 2 or day 74 (Frisella, 2024). The program’s help center adds that each workout has to be 45 continuous minutes, and that you should check with your physician before starting and not start if they advise against it (Andy Frisella Help Center).

Because the official program allows no changes, everything below is a different challenge. That’s fine. The point is to find one you’ll finish.

Why people look for an alternative

Two workouts a day means at least an hour and a half of exercise, every day, for 75 days. Add the water, the reading and the diet, and it’s a lot to fit around a job, kids, shift work or an injury.

The restart rule is the other sticking point. It’s deliberate in 75 Hard, and it’s much stricter than habit research says you need. In a study of people building a new daily habit, missing one opportunity did not materially affect the habit forming (Lally et al., 2010), and progress soon picked up again after a missed day (Gardner et al., 2012). If one bad day would end your whole challenge, you may want a version with a different rule for misses.

Six alternatives, with rules

1. A 75 Soft-style challenge

75 Soft has no official rulebook, and the versions shared online differ. Here’s one version that keeps the 75 days and the daily checklist:

• One workout a day of at least 30 minutes, with one rest or gentle day each week.
• One eating rule you choose and keep, such as cooking dinner at home on weekdays.
• A glass of water with every meal.
• Read 10 pages of any book.
• Missed day: add one day to the end instead of restarting.

Good for: anyone who likes the 75 Hard structure but needs it to fit a full life.

2. 30 Days Hard

Take the official five tasks, or your own five, and do them for 30 days instead of 75. Keep the restart rule if you want the full intensity.

Good for: testing whether daily all-in challenges suit you before committing to 75 days.

3. Three Hard Things

Each day, do one hard thing in each of three areas. You choose them, write them down and keep the same three for the whole challenge.

• Body: a workout, a long walk, stairs instead of the elevator all day.
• Mind: read 10 pages, an hour with your phone in another room, learning something for 20 minutes.
• Life: the email you’ve been avoiding, 30 minutes on a side project, a conversation you’ve been putting off.

Run it for 30, 66 or 75 days. Missed day: do it at the next chance and keep counting.

Good for: people whose “hard” isn’t the gym.

4. The 66-Day Habit

Pick one habit and do it every day for 66 days. The number comes from habit research: in the study that measured it, people’s sense of doing a new behavior automatically leveled off around 66 days on average (Gardner et al., 2012). The range was wide, from 18 to 254 days (Lally et al., 2010), so day 66 is a checkpoint rather than a finish line. Read more in our guide to the 21/90 rule.

• Same action, same time or place each day.
• Missed day: do it at the next chance. Don’t restart.

Good for: anyone who wants one change to actually stick.

5. The Weekly Minimum

Set weekly targets instead of daily ones, so a busy Tuesday doesn’t end the challenge. For exercise, the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines are a solid target: adults need at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity a week, plus muscle-strengthening activity, like lifting weights or push-ups, on at least 2 days a week (HHS).

• At least 150 minutes of moderate activity each week, in any mix of days.
• Strength work on at least 2 days a week.
• Read a set number of pages each week.
• Run it for 12 weeks.

Good for: parents, shift workers and anyone whose days are unpredictable.

6. The Floor

Pick a minimum so small you can do it on your worst day, and do it every day.

• A 10-minute walk.
• One page of a book.
• One sentence in a journal about the day.

Do more whenever you can, but only the floor counts toward the streak. Missed day: start the streak again, since the floor was built to be doable.

Good for: hard seasons, like illness, a new baby or a stressful month at work, when you want to keep your identity as someone who shows up.

Which alternative fits you

Alternative	Length	Daily load	If you miss a day
75 Soft-style	75 days	Medium	Add a day at the end
30 Days Hard	30 days	High	Your choice: restart or continue
Three Hard Things	30 to 75 days	Medium	Continue
66-Day Habit	66 days	Low	Continue
Weekly Minimum	12 weeks	Varies by day	Weekly target, so no daily miss
The Floor	Open-ended	Very low	Restart the streak

How to set your rules so you finish

Write your rules down before day one, including exactly what counts as done. “Workout” is vague. “30 minutes of walking, running or lifting” is clear. Decide your missed-day rule now, while you’re calm, so you aren’t negotiating with yourself at 10 p.m.

Plan for the days that will go wrong: travel, a sick kid, a late shift. If a rule only works on a perfect day, change it before you start. And if your challenge includes a big change to how you eat or exercise, check with your doctor first.

It also helps to know why you’re doing it. Writing a short note to the person you’ll be on the last day makes a good start, and these future-self journaling prompts can help you find the words.

Today’s small step

Pick one of the six alternatives and write its rules on a single note: the tasks, the length, what counts as done and what happens if you miss a day. Put your start date at the top. If it fits on one note, it’s simple enough to keep.