75-Day Challenges Compared: Hard, Soft, and Your Own
75 Hard, 75 Soft, the informal middle versions, and custom pacts compared on workload, the failure rule, and who writes the rules you have to keep.
Quick answer: The versions differ on three things: how much work they ask of you each day, what happens when you miss, and who wrote the rules. 75 Hard is the heaviest and the strictest — its published rules send you back to day 1 for any miss. 75 Soft is lighter and forgiving. A custom pact sits wherever you put it. Pick on the failure rule first; that is the part you will feel.
Every 75-day challenge looks the same from outside: a list of daily tasks, a calendar, a number that climbs. The differences are small on paper and enormous in practice.
Work through them in this order.
Question one: how much does it cost you per day?
Add up the minutes before you commit to anything.
75 Hard, as its published rules state, asks for two workouts a day, each "a minimum of 45 minutes long, they must be 3 hours apart from each other, and one of the two workouts MUST BE OUTSIDE." On top of that: a structured diet with no alcohol and no cheat meals, a gallon of water, at least 10 pages of non-fiction, and a daily progress photo.
That is ninety minutes of training every day. Ten and a half hours a week, before you count travel, changing, or shopping and cooking for the diet. For comparison, the World Health Organization's floor for adults aged 18 to 64 is at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. The program is roughly four times that.
This is not an argument against it. It is an argument for knowing the number before day 1, and for ramping into it if you have been sedentary. Get medical clearance if you have any reason to.
75 Soft is a lighter build. In the version WebMD describes, you are asked to be mindful of food and avoid alcohol except for social occasions, drink three liters of water, read 10 pages a day of something that is not on your phone, train daily with one active rest day a week, and take a photo at the start and the end.
Informal middle versions — usually called 75 Medium — circulate widely on social media. There is no official rulebook and no single author, so the rules change depending on who posted them. If you run one, write down your own version before you start, or you will negotiate with yourself in week three.
A custom pact costs whatever you decide. That is its strength and its trap.
Question two: what happens when you miss?
This is the real decision, and most people skip it.
75 Hard's published rules are unambiguous: "if you mess up on ANY task, at any time during the 75 days of 75 HARD ... you start over at Day 1." Fail on day 74 and you begin again. The program's own material frames this as the point rather than a penalty — the position is that a modified version defeats the purpose.
75 Soft does not do that. As WebMD puts it, "You are not punished if you're unable to meet one of the daily goals."
Both designs are defensible, and they suit different people.
A restart rule makes every day matter, which is exactly what some people need and exactly what breaks others. If you are the sort who negotiates, the hard rule removes the negotiation. If you are the sort who abandons anything once it is imperfect, a hard rule hands you a reason to quit on day 9.
Be honest about which one you are. You already know.
Question three: who wrote the rules?
75 Hard has an author, a published rulebook, and a large community running the same thing. That consistency is worth something. When you tell someone you are on day 40 of 75 Hard, they know precisely what you have been doing.
75 Soft and the middle versions have no such authority. You get flexibility and you lose the shared meaning.
A custom pact is yours alone. The research offers mild support for that: a 2024 systematic review of health habit formation found that habits which were self-selected were more successful than those assigned without the participant's choice. Choosing your own tasks is not the same as choosing easy tasks. Write the pact hard, then hold it.
The comparison in one table
| 75 Hard | 75 Soft | Custom pact | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily training | Two sessions, 45 min each, one outdoors | One session, one active rest day a week | Your call |
| Alcohol | None | Avoided except socially | Your call |
| Water | One gallon | Three liters | Your call |
| Reading | 10 pages, non-fiction | 10 pages, not on a phone | Your call |
| Photo | Daily | Start and end | Your call |
| Miss a task | Restart at day 1 | No penalty | Whatever you wrote |
| Rules published by | The program's author | No single authority | You |
Rules as published by the program and as described by WebMD respectively; informal versions vary.
Which one to run
Pick 75 Hard if you want a fixed standard you did not write and cannot argue with, and if you can genuinely find ninety minutes a day for eleven weeks.
Pick 75 Soft if the honest alternative is doing nothing. A completed light challenge beats an abandoned heavy one.
Write your own pact if the published lists do not fit your body, your shift pattern, or your sport — but keep a restart rule in it. A pact with no consequence is a wish.
Whichever you choose, log it somewhere that is not your memory. Unbroken runs any of them: you write the pact, your witnesses see each day as you bank it, and the Record keeps the days you earned even when a run resets. The 75 Hard tracker will hold the standard version if you want to see the shape of it first.
Read next
- 75 Hard vs 75 Soft: Which Challenge Fits You?
- 75 Hard vs Unbroken: Rules, Flexibility, and Witnesses
- The 75 Hard Rules, Explained Task by Task
- Missed a Day of 75 Hard? What the Restart Rule Really Means
75 Hard is a trademark of its owner, and 75 Soft belongs to whoever made it popular. Unbroken is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by either program, and it names them here only to describe them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between 75 Hard and 75 Soft?
Workload and consequences. 75 Hard's published rules ask for two 45-minute workouts a day with one outdoors, no alcohol, no cheat meals, and a restart at day 1 for any miss. 75 Soft asks for one daily workout with a rest day, lighter diet rules, and no penalty for a missed goal.
Is there an official 75 Medium?
No. Middle versions circulate on social media without a single author or rulebook, so the tasks differ from post to post. If you run one, write your own rules down before day 1 and treat that document as the standard.
Can I modify 75 Hard and still call it 75 Hard?
The program's own position is no — its material states that modifying the program defeats its purpose. You are free to run a modified 75-day challenge, but call it what it is: your pact, not theirs.
Which challenge is best for a beginner?
The one you will finish. If you currently do no structured exercise, ninety minutes a day is a large jump from the 150 minutes a week that public health guidance sets as a floor for adults. Start lighter, finish something, then raise the standard.
Does it matter whether I choose my own tasks?
Some evidence says it helps. A 2024 review found self-selected habits were more successful than assigned ones. That is an argument for authorship, not for leniency — write the pact yourself, then make it hard.