Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Sugar Mama's Fireplay. I am your host financial planner Canna Campbell. In today's episode is a little bit different. I want to share with you a fun challenge that I did that costs absolutely nothing but really has had quite an impact in my life. Even Tom, who's my biggest fan but also my biggest critic, has said this has been
quite transformational, and I am inclined to agree. Some habits, some attitudes, some lifestyle choices have really shifted.
And changed for the better of my life.
And I want to share with you exactly what I did why, and also share with you why I'm going to do it all over again and invite you to join me. Now, what am I talking about. I'm talking about the seventy five Challenge, which you may have seen me post sporadically on my Instagram account Canna Campbell Official, as well as obviously the Sugar Mama Instagram account. I'm going to go back a bit and explain first of all, what the seventy five challenge is, and it's often known
as seventy five hard. So this is a transformative mental toughness challenges called and It was created by a guy called Andy Faesel, and it is designed to help you develop certain areas in your life or characteristics that you lack and to change them for the better and to make long term change. Now with seventy five Hard, it is something you're sort of five or six rules that you follow every single day and if you and you
have to do it for seventy five days straight. Now, if you skip one of those five rules or break one of those five rules during the seventy five Hard Challenge, you're supposed to go back to day one and start all over again. But here are the rules that you're supposed to follow for Hard seventy five, and that is you stick to one diet of your choice. You drink
no alcohol. You have to exercise or twice a day, with each exercise being a minimum of forty five minutes, and one of those exercises has to be actually performed outside in the sunlight, in the elements, in the fresh air. You also have to drink four and a half liters of water, and you have to take a daily photograph, and you have to read at least ten pages of nonfiction. And some people say you also have to do ten
minutes of journaling. Now you do come out the other side as a different person, and as Andy Fizzel, the founder of this challenge, he says, you'll come out a far more disciplined person and someone very very different.
Now.
I didn't do hard seventy five. I did, you could say soft seventy five. I created my own rules because I knew that hard seventy five was completely unrealistic for me, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I knew that I didn't have the time to be exercising twice today, each time for forty five minutes. I'm not someone who has a problem with alcohol. I enjoy the occasional glass of champagne. But it did to me quitting alcohol for
seventy five days didn't really add any value. And I also, you know, I drink a lot of water anyway, so I didn't really see the point of the forty four and a half laters. And to me, that seemed a bit excessive. But I really wanted to do something like this. I was feeling a little bit lost. I wanted something to sink my teeth in and to give me a point of focus. And I guess I was curious to
see what was what was this all about. It's quite a viral trend at the moment on social media, and actually my O pair who's living this at the moment, she was doing it and I was seeing it. You know, I was really inspired by her. So I decided to jump on this bandwagon. And I actually want to do it, but I wanted to keep it realistic. So I actually created my own rules, and these are the rules that I did for my version of seventy five. So I did six workouts per week for a minimum of thirty
five minutes. I journaled every morning for at least ten minutes. I also use this as an opportunity to get things done that I'd been putting off or had blocks around for the last six to nine months, including the Jamie Ryder Rising Phoenix Mindset program. So I agreed, okay, what I'm doing it. If I'm going to do seventy five, I'm going to make sure I do at least, you know, ten minutes a day of this particular program and aimed
to try and finish it. I also read for at least ten minutes every morning and sorry at least ten pages of nonfiction, and I pretty much did this, and I also towards as I finished the Jamie Rider program, which I successfully completed within the seventy five days, I shifted that to some goal setting manifestation work. Now, what I also did is I would say I stuck to this. Honestly,
I reckon about eighty seven percent of the time. And where for example, maybe I did only five workouts and so six workouts for the week, I made sure that when I did do workouts, I trained for forty five minutes instead of thirty five, so I could make up for those days that I lost. And there are plenty of days also where I read for more than ten minutes or I read more than ten pages, and there were days where I definitely journaled for a lot longer.
Now one of the.
Ways that I stuck to this, and I'm actually surprised as to how easy for me it was to stick to I got out of bed, which I do every day normally at five am, but I had I did a couple of things before I went to bed to make sure that I would hit the ground running and not get distracted and jump off my phone or have a conversation with Tom. So I actually left my notebook and pen out on the sofa, so the moment I
sat down the sofa, I could immediately start journaling. I also scheduled in my diary as to when I was going to do the exercises, like what worked with the kid's routine, when I'd have a quick break to myself to pop down to the.
Gym or where.
You know, how was I going to efficiently ensure that I got that thirty five minutes of exercise? And I found that, you know, I would actually go and take the dogs for a walk and walk past some of the outdoor gyms and just stop there for thirty five minutes into a whole pile of exercise while the dogs were running around. And you know, I would also put my book that I was reading at the time, you know, also next to the journal, so the moment I finished the journal, I would go straight to my book.
And I also spoke about this.
I think putting it out on social media is obviously
makes you accountable. It does put a little bit of pressure yourself because you really want to maintain it, but it and I also left my exercise gear out, so you know, I'd get straight into my exercise gear, so I'd be ready to do some sort of exercise while thinking, oh gosh, it's cold, I don't want to have to change my warm clothes, you know, stripped down and put on my exercise gear, and I think, you know, talking about it to other people and really paying attention to
how I felt after doing exercise, how I felt after journaling. It really actually made me realize how powerful this is and how much I'm learning about myself and how I'm actually evolving. So for me, it actually wasn't hard to stick to. I will admit, though not I didn't follow the rule of if I missed or didn't successfully complete each day. I didn't punish myself by going back to
day one. I just continued on, pushed on, and as I said, I tried to make it up for other days so that, you know, when you average it all out, I was pretty much close to being you know, one hundred percent as best I could. So this is it wasn't about being mean or punishing myself. It was about enjoying the process and making it empowering, making exciting and ripping all the beautiful benefits from doing this. Now, how did this challenge help me? And I'd say, it helped
me so much. So it created some amazing habits and gave me a beautiful sense of direction and structure, particularly to my mornings. I'm someone who really likes to get a lot of things done in the first half of the day so I can take my foot off the gas and relax a bit. And for someone who ADHD, that is someone something I find really really helpful if I just try and get as much done and then I can kind of let my brain go a bit wild,
you know, after one o'clock. Of course, obviously, going from someone who does exercise two to three times a week going to exercise six days per week, wow, I felt so much stronger. I looked so much leaner and toned, and my posture is so much better also from my journaling. But I will say it was the one where I was like really journaling, like oh, that's so not me
that probably had the biggest best uplift for me. I didn't realize how much journaling helps get the clutter, the noise, the anxiety out of your head and body down onto paper where you get a sense of perspective and you can just release it all. And it was I felt mentally a lot happier and a lot calmer, and my hand right from journaling every day improved out of sight.
In fact, I would even go a spar as saying, my handwriting is actually really beautiful and really elegant now after journaling every single day, I also noticed that I felt way more creative. I'm someone who gets, I guess very easily inspired anyway, but I would get this wave of inspiration where ten ideas would hit me at one time.
In doing this challenge, I found that my creative ideas came to me consistently, but in a gentle flow throughout the day, rather than less literally, you know, having ten ideas being catapulted into my brain at the same time. It was like there was a beautiful flow or rhythm of ideas coming to me throughout the day consistently. I also felt, from you know, whilst doing this challenge, a lot more emotionally resilient, as you may know from my socials,
My King, my big baby Giuseppe by Chocolate Labrador. He actually passed away towards the end of this challenge, and you know, he's someone who has been through with me everything and I've had His twelve was twelve years old and he's helped me get through severe post natal depression post from my extress syndrome. He was actually my profile picture on Happen, which is like it was the old online dating website. When I met Tom, and he sadly
passed away from cancer. He went downhill very quickly and it was absolutely heartbreaking, and I'm still really impacted by this. But I think from doing this particular challenge, and very much so incorporating the Jamie Ryder Rising Phoenix Program as part of this challenge for me, it made me a
lot more mentally resilient. And I will make a separate episode about the Jamie Rider Mindset program because I think it was really powerful but particularly important for people who are who need to get therapy but can't afford it right now. So I'm want to do a completely separate episode that so make sure you're obviously following the show, because I promise I will get this created this episode
for you as soon as physically possible. But in doing the Jami Writer Program and should I did between five to twenty minutes a day as part of this seventy five challenge the Jami Writer Program, and one of the things was you had to write seventy five blessings in disguise of a particular trauma or event in your life
that was holding you back. Now, because I completed the Jami Writer program within this challenge, I when I finished, and obviously this happened to Giuseppe, I decided to take that exercise of seventy five blessings and apply it to Giuseppe. And I think I'm up to, you know, so far,
thirty five blessings from Giuseppe. And you know, it's a beautiful skill that I've learned that I've incorporated back into this challenge so and it's definitely helping me get out of that whole of sadness and grief and heartache you know that comes with losing someone that means so much to you. To stepping into a place of gratitude or I'm so lucky you to have had some beautiful bond with this animal. I'm so lucky to have had him
in my life for you know, twelve years. I'm so lucky for all the wonderful things that he taught me, and he taught my children, and I'm so lucky to have him by my side helping me raise three young children as well. So you know, if for me, incorporating a strong element of personal growth rather than just health and fitness was really valuable, I'd also say that doing this challenge is giving me a great sense of confidence and self worth. I mean, seventy five day challenge, it's
a lot. There are so many distractions, there are so many temptations. There are days where it was pouring with rain. It was I think it rained for like five days straight, and I still exercised every day, even if it meant putting on a raincoat and exercising outside and you know, I or it meant like having you know, if it was really tired and hadn't had a chance yet to do exercise. I still do my exercise at eight pm at night on the you know, living room sofa in
front of the TV. So actually seeing myself doing this rather than talking about it and actually doing it honestly and with you know, being really genuine about I did do thirty five minutes because I set the timer. I didn't cheat, I didn't round my minutes up or anything like that. It really did improve my sense of confidence and self worth. And even Tom said, I'm so proud of you doing this. I can't believe you actually did
the whole seventy five days. Also, I would say in doing this, and I would I think it's because I had a strong balance towards the personal growth side.
I feel a lot.
More calm and a lot more organized, which is something, as you know, for my ADHD, was really valuable. It's allowed me to see I actually need to do more work around my organizational skills to help manage my ADHD better. Now I know I'm selling this and it sounds amazing and great, but I also want to share with you the downsides of doing this as well as the risks. Now, when I was doing this, I actually injured my knee.
I don't know what I did to it. Tom's been treating it for me, but I think from going from doing exercise to three times a week to six times a week, my body I'm getting old, I'm getting achy, and my joints aren't the same. But my knee really really hurt. And even with my knee hurting, I didn't give up. I just pivoted. I did a different style of exercise. You know, instead of doing the bike, I would do more weights, lying down and focused on core stability.
And so forth.
So I worked around it, but I wouldn't have injured myself if I wasn't doing this challenge. I would also say there is a negative impact on your mental health if you have over committed and you know, you agree to do this and put it out there and then realize, actually, this is unrealistic. I can't possibly do this in my lifestyle because then you'd feel really bad about yourself. You'd
have obviously a negative impact on your mental health. I would also say that there were elements and this wasn't so much for me, but it was justly my opair where she started to feel like, oh, I really don't want to go and exercise, and I also I felt like that time as well. But if you're doing the same type of excit size over and over again, you could fall out of love with that particular exercise. You know,
too much of the same thing is never great. The other thing I would say that's negative about this is a diet of your choice under the official hard seventy five rules. That sounds a bit flaky. Is that healthy? Is that a balanced diart? I just I don't I really question that. I'm not a dietician. I'm not a doctor, I don't work in fitness and industry. But to me, I'm like, I think there could be some clear boundaries, you know, maybe around that. Also drinking four and a
half laters of water. I think like everyone needs to go and do their own research. But there is quite a bit of studies about obviously over diluting your body of all the electrodes from drinking too much water. And you know the other thing with this is it is hard to sustain. Like, if you're going to do this challenge, you've got to look at what your calendar looks like
for the next seventy five days. You know, doing this during school holidays if you've got kids can be hard, or if you're going away on holidays, this could be really hard. Or if you've got lots of social events coming up where you've got late nights, or you know that you're going to be at an event where you'll want to have a glass of wine, you know, this could be hard. So you really need to do to
make sure you time this at something that's right for you. Now, I'm actually thinking of doing this all over again, and I'm actually going to invite you to join me and do this together. So I want to do another version, a soft version, and I'm going to call it seventy five Canna And this is what I'm thinking of doing. And it's six thirty five minute training sessions per week like I previously did, but one of those training sessions
can actually be thirty five minutes of stretching. I realized that my body is old and aggy, you know, maybe six is a bit too much for my body and my joints. So I have a day off to recover. But also i have a day off to recover, but I'm still technically doing exercise because I'm doing thirty five minutes of stretching. And I did this the other day and I was like when I finished, I was like, gosh, my body actually feels really good after stretching. Was like
my body was like thanking me. Because I'm someone who goes to the gym and exercises straight away, I'm irresponsible not probably warming up. And I'm also too impatient that when I finish my workout, I don't stand there and stretch for five minutes like I should. I pretty much, you know, jump in the pool or walk out the door and get on with my day. So I think adding this component of one of those thirty five minute
sessions being stretching, is great for me. The other thing I'm thinking of doing as a rule is adding in an area that I need to either organize, tidy, or declutter. So what I'm thinking is, each day, I have to find one area in my life. So it might be a draw, it might be a cupboard, it might be something in my bathroom, it might be my makeup kit, it might be something even in an area in my car where I have to declutter, tidy, or reorganize.
So do just targeting one small area once a day.
It's going to take me anywhere between one minute to five minutes. I'm definitely going to keep in the journaling because I love this. This was a really beautiful exercise and I'm really in admiration of my own handwriting, if I don't say so myself. Next is reading ten pages or ten minutes of reading each day. I definitely want to keep doing this. There were so many books I've bought that so many books I've bought and I have
an a chance yet to read. And she felt really good finally progressing through my list of books that I've bought and you know, I think I knocked off maybe four books during the seventy five challenge, which felt amazing, and I found that I've been able to articulate myself in a lot more I guess cohesive manner since reading more. So I definitely want to stick to that I goat
with and that's non negotiable. I also want to add in an element of either financial goal work or financial goal manifesting work where I spend the morning rereading my financial goals or I spend my morning manifesting my goals. So I might do some affirmations around my financial goals, or I might do some visualization around my financial goals. So just literally spend two to ten minutes maybe looking at my financial goals or doing something around my financial goals.
And there might be something like, okay, well I'm going to open I'm going to transfer one hundred dollars to one thousand dollar project, or I'm going to review my budget for ten minutes something that is in alignment to my financial well being and my financial journey, and of course including one thousand dollar project as much as possible. And then finally, what I'm thinking for doing this seventy
five can. I challenge is eating five vegetables per day. Now, this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I don't eat enough vegetables. I eat plenty of fruit, I just don't eat the recommended daily intake of vegetables being five vegetables per day. And I would really like to have a go at consciously and intentionally ensuring that I have five different vegetables per day.
Even if it's just you know, a couple.
Of cellery sticks or carrot sticks, or you know, half a tomato on a sandwich, I'm still going to count that. But I want to really increase the amount of fiber I'm getting from vegetables. So that is what I'm thinking of doing. And I'm going to start this on the ninth of June and it will finish around towards I think around that. I think I worked out finished around the twenty fourth of maybe August, for that full seventy five days. And I would absolutely love for you to
join me in this challenge. Now I've shared with you what I'm thinking of doing, and I'm going to put on social media these rules so you can refer to them. But I would love for you to come up with your own rules as well. What I have I'm doing for me may not necessarily work for you, or you may actually think it's too soft, or we may actually think it's too hard. But what I would recommend you do as you're thinking about your seventy five rules, think
about what you need to improve in your life. For example, you might really relate to that feeling of being overwhelmed and disorganized and having too much clutter around you and mess and just mayhem. So my idea of spending ten minutes a day tidying, decluttering, or reorganizing one area for your life might really appeal to you, But she might be someone who's actually got that area of your life completely sorted and downpat so doing that wouldn't actually add value.
Perhaps there's something else in your life. Perhaps there is a course that you haven't completed, or something you've been putting on for a long time that you can go, all right, I'm going to put ten minutes a day towards getting that completed. Or perhaps you like to write a book but you've never actually sat down and got it done, or you've got maybe two thirds of the
way and you stopped. Maybe this is the perfect challenge for you to help you get back on top of that particular project task challenge and completed it with the goal of having it completed and wrapped up within that seventy five day challenge in best time, thinking all, right,
where do I need improvement in my life? And see if you can create a rule around that that is gentle, empowering and small, like bite size small, so that you can have it, stack it and have a great success and breakthrough at the end of those seventy five days.
Now, why am.
I I doing all of this so all over again? Like when I told my ow pair, I'm doing it all again, I'm restarting.
She was like, why, why You've just finished?
Why would you go and do this all over again and do this to yourself? I was like, well, I'm actually feeling so proud of myself and I have never, well, not for a really long time since. I think it was in my twenties that I've actually looked like I'm in better shape and felt proud of how much more toned I look. I also feel like I could benefit
from particularly this. I guess you could say this minimalism or reorganizing decluttering my life right now because my ADHD has gotten a little bit out of control, and I think this will be a way of managing my ADHD without having to increase my ADHD medication. And I've still got a lot of books that I want to get through. I want to make sure I get through those books, and I want to I want to prioritize my manifesting work and my manifesting skills with more intention and on
a regular basis, in alignment to my financial goals. And I really want to see how far I can go with my manifesting work. I've had some amazing breakthroughs. I want to keep going and see where this goes. And I mean eating more vegetables.
I don't think I know a.
Single person who doesn't need to eat more vegetables, to be honest, of course, unless you are a vegetarian and you're a strict vegetarian. So that is what I've been doing. This challenge costs me absolutely nothing. This challenge definitely was has transformed myself my life, and it's given me something that money can't buy.
And I love that it costs absolutely.
Nothing, and it's been a lot of fun and I've loved talking about it. I've loved receiving questions about it, and I've had so many people ask me to make this podcast explain all what I've been doing and why. So now I've done all those things, but I've also explained to you how to do this for yourself. So as I wrap up today's episode, I want to invite you to do this. I want you to come up with your own five rules. And I don't want anyone
to punish themselves. Please don't do this. Nick Well, if I skip one day or broke, didn't complete something successfully or all the things successful, we have to restart again. No, no, no, that rule doesn't exist with this one. And I would love for you to share on social media tag me and everything and hashtag seventy five canna because I would love for us to all inspire each other, motivate each other and see how we all look and feel on the other side of this, and for anyone that is
actually interested. And I don't I feel a little bit weird sharing this, but my opair when I started, she made me a picture of myself and I'm not someone who does that, like takes a picture of myself to
do a point of comparison, but she insisted I did it. Anyway, I did do it, and then I'm so glad I did this because I only took the one at the beginning, and then I took one at the end, and I compared, and I put them to side by side, and I was really impressive because I actually couldn't see those changes myself, because obviously, you know, you don't really notice that those
little improvements every day in your physical appearance. But when I could compare between before and after, wow, I was really taken aback by how much more toned I looked. And it was just little things here and there. But anyway, so I will go and share that before and after maybe my act as a form of like motivation or inspiration to do this yourself. Again, Please note that this
is not about a materialistic physical challenge. It's actually about personal growth and development, living our best lives and learning how to create new habits in our lives that will take us to better places, happier places, and allow us to live with more richness, more security, more stability, and more harmony. All right, that is it for today's episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to seeing and hearing from you on social media on Instagram and I really hope you'll be a part of hashtag seventy five camera Chow for now,