The 75 hard challenge has come roaring back - but I have my own self-improvement regime | Emma Beddington

I have a masochistic interest in catchily named social media self-improvement challenges, so I already knew about “75 hard” – 75 days of drinking eight pints of water, doing two 45-minute workouts, eating clean and, endearingly, reading 10 pages of nonfiction – before it made its recent comeback. Paddy McGuinness has reignited interest, crediting the regime started in 2019 by podcaster Andy Frisella for his transformation from a normal soft-bodied human into an uncanny mass of bronzed abs and pecs.

It’s inspired me to make my own changes, but not by doing 75 hard or its ilk. I’ve realised what I actually want to do is devise my own devilish self-improvement challenge. After all, I enjoy telling people what to do, and goodness knows, I could use another revenue stream. But what should mine involve? I debated an intellectual 75 hard, to transform your brain into as finely honed a machine as McGuinness’s body. Participants would pack the library like a gym in January, every table crowded with locked-in bros hyping each other up, as they struggle through Gravity’s Rainbow or Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. “I can’t, it makes no sense! I’ve read this paragraph 12 times!” “That’s quitter’s talk. I know you’ve got another page in you, bruh – MAN UP!” Additional requirements would include sonnet composition, calculus, learning a new language and listening to In Our Time episodes on very occasional “cheat” days.

I also workshopped “75 housetrained”: an exacting daily domestic reeducation regime comprising recycling and replacing empty loo roll tubes, taking bins out, putting glasses in, not on, the dishwasher and presenting realistic dinner ideas. But actually, I reckon a programme for squeezing joy from what remains of winter is more bankable. In “75 gentle”, every week you’ll need to stroke an animal, eat something you loved as a child, have a nap, share a wholesome meme with a friend, drink 10 cups of your preferred hot drink and buy yourself a bunch of £1 daffodils. And if you fail, it’s OK! But only if you buy my branded “pre-nap” biscuits.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist