North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Soriano and the Slumping Cubs

The Chicago Cubs have become synonymous with "slumping", "choking", and "pressing".  All terms used to describe mental thought processes that create a loser's mindset, loss of momentum and underachievement.

Carrie Muskat /  MLB.com wrote a very relevant post entitled "Slumping Soriano aims to clear his mind".  In this article Carrie interviewed Soriano, who concluded "Sometimes, you can think too much. Alfonso Soriano says that may be what's happening to him lately."

For many people who are "stuck" and have lost their momentum in life, they sometimes think too much.  Usually, however, the problem is not that they are thinking too much.

The problem is that they are thinking "wrong thoughts".  As is the case with Soriano, there is a realistic basis to some of his "wrong thinking".  Thinking is "wrong" when it programs our minds for failure and underachievement.

Let us look at Soriano's hitting this year.  In fact, we can look at most of the Cubs hitters such as M. Bradley, M. Fontenot, K. Fukudome, G. Soto, A. Miles, R. Johnson, A. Blanco, A. Ramirez and K. Hill.  All of these hitters are slumping and have been slumping almost the entire season so far.

According to Soriano, he has never struggled for this long.  In June his batting average was below 200.  Obviously this is not acceptable to him or any major league hitter.  Soriano told Carrie he needs to "clean" his mind.  He is so right!

Soriano admitted that "I worry".  Again a realistic response to hitting below 200 for entire month, but the "wrong" way to think if you want to be successful major league hitter.

Soriano expressed his dilemma.  He believes physically he is playing his game as well as he has in the past. 

Soriano stated "his swing looks the same now as it did last year and two years ago. He isn't changing his bat, or switching routines, or trying to find the right pregame egg salad sandwich. One good thing is that Soriano is healthy physically."

What has gone wrong?  It's how he has been thinking about his abysmal performance!

Two mistakes are evident in his thinking.

1. He has been thinking to avoid being hurt rather than maximizing his functioning. "I've been working hard to not get hurt get hurt this year."  Playing to not get hurt will result in under achievement.
2. Soriano is allowing his "poor hitting performance" to control his mind rather than allowing his "good hitting thinking" to determine his performance. Soriano said. "I'm not hurt physically, but I'm hurt mentally because I'm not hitting well."

From a mental fitness perspective we cannot allow our performance and especially our past blunders in performance to determine how we think about ourselves.  As the case with the Chicago Cubs, their failure to hit results in self-doubt, worry, anxiety, pressing, or choking.  Filling their minds with these thoughts certainly will kill momentum and guarantee under performance.

If you want to break a "slump" or stop "pressing", change how you think!  Don't allow your under performance to determine how you think.  No matter how bad your performance has been, detach your thinking from your poor performances.  Focus your thinking on your identity as a successful person and focus on playing within your ability.

Remember, Professional Baseball Hitters Live within the Environment Created by Their Thinking about Their Hitting.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

 

Dr. Hal

 

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Susan Boyle Is a Winner!

In spite of losing Britain's Got Talent competition, worldwide favorite Susan Boyle is a champion.  She not only sang her signature song, "I Dreamed a Dream", she lived her dream! 

Expectations: What to Expect In Your Relationships?

Remember when you heard the wedding bells?  What expectations do you have for your marriage?  You were in love and undoubtedly had expectations for an exciting, passionate and long lasting relationship.  Didn't you expect your chosen one to be happy most of the time?  Didn't  you expect him or her to wake up with a lot of energy and passion, only to be disappointed or frustrated?

Remember, when you had your first job or the job of your dreams?  What expectations did you have for your work associates?  Didn't  you expect them to appreciate your work and validate you as a worker?  Weren't you poorly prepared to experience indifference, rejection and criticism from your boss or coworkers?

Remember when you began having children?  Remember how excited you were to have your children.  Although you may have never consciously thought about it, what expectations did you have for your children?  Did youexpect our children to be free from problems, develop normally and do well in all they do?  Most of us did not expect our children to have developmental difficulties, learning problems, social problems or behavioral problems.

Most of us have expectations full of the excitement, anticipated happiness and idealism when we begin a new relationship.  Oftentimes, our expectations are not realistic and practical.  Even after being in relationships for a considerable period of time, our expectations remain unrealistic and as a result we experience unnecessary emotional pain, anger and disappointment.

Our expectations regarding the important people in our lives would become more realistic, practical and functional, if we were to apply our knowledge about the fuel system in a car to our relationships.  With a car we know that the car will have times when the gas tank approaches empty and we expect our cars to become empty and give us empty signals on a regular basis.  Especially after we had been driving our cars, we expect our cars to become empty.

Do we have the expectation that the important people in our lives will be empty on a regular basis and this is normal?  How much better would our relationships become if we expected our significant others to have times of fullness and emptiness on a regular basis? 

 Our relationships would be much better if we expected our significant others to have signals of emptiness, when they are empty.  Most people respond to the signals of emptiness from our significant others as problems, symptoms, personality weaknesses or dysfunctional, learned behavior from one's family of origin. 

Signals of emptiness are not problems, symptoms, personality weaknesses or dysfunctional behavior from past relationships!  If we mis-read and fail to understand that signals of emptiness are only signals, then these missed signals can result in problems, symptoms, personality weaknesses or dysfunctional behavior.

Wouldn't your relationship with your wife become much better, if you interpreted "nagging", headaches, and irritability as signals of emptiness rather than as criticism, problems and deficiencies in your wife?

Wouldn't your relationship with your husband become much better, if you interpreted his anger, poor listening ability and emotional coldness as signals of emptiness rather than as problems, rejection, insensitivity, and a lack of love?

Wouldn't your relationships with your boss or fellow employees become better, if you interpreted their hostile, insensitive and different responses to you as indicating their signals of emptiness rather than as demeaning or criticizing you?

Wouldn't your relationships with your children improve immensely if you interpreted their problems, defiance, disobedience and emotional instability as signals of emptiness rather than concluding that they are bad, spoiled, ungrateful and self-centered?

Let us focus on accepting the reality of emptiness in our significant others.  Let us expect all of our significant others to sometimes be empty and have signals of emptiness.  Having appropriate and realistic expectations for our significant others will significantly reduce our conflicts with our significant others.  Our significant others will not feel pressured, judged, criticized and demeaned if we change our expectations.

Remember, We Live within the Relationships Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Fight the Giants in Your Life

There are giants in all of our lives.  The Giants that we face take many forms.  For some it is declining health.  For others it may be the economy; lost jobs, failed mortgages or depreciated savings.  For others it may be big bgovernment or political pressures and fears.  For others it may be relationship conflicts or concerns regarding your children.  For some it may be obtaining an education, finding a job, grieving the loss of a loved one or finding a new relationship.

Everyone has Giants in their lives.  Remember the opening scene from the movie "Troy".  Achilles  faced the Giant Thessalonian.  Everyone feared the Giant except for Achilles.  Remember the conversation with a small child, who questioned the wisdom of fighting the Giant.  The child was afraid to face the Giant and Achilles responded "that is why you will not be remembered".

Remember the story about David and Goliath.  Even when we feel that we can't defeat the Giants in our life, it is important to stand up and fight.  The Giants may be overwhelming.  We may think that what we can do is insignificant.  Even though we feel beaten down, we must not quit and give up.  We must rise up from our doubts, fears and anxiety.

We must become stronger than the Giants in our lives.  We must stand up and face our problems and find solutions.  We must leave a successful legacy for ourselves, family and society.  We must do whatever is necessary to take care of ourselves and defeat the Giants in our lives.

CJ Lee wrote a very interesting commentary regarding Achilles defeat of the Thessalonian Giant.  He entitled his post "Live Life without Regrets".  CJ realized that problems are really opportunities.  He wrote:

"Once in a lifetime opportunities should not be hampered by fear. They should be embraced with positive thinking, will, and determination. This does not ensure that everything will go right every time, but you will certainly live a life without regret, because you were not afraid to pull the trigger. Doing things that will last forever separates you from others, and to do something that will last forever is probably the greatest opportunity a human can get."

Defeating the Giants in your life, will not only solve the immediate problems in your life, it will also make you stronger and you will leave a wonderful legacy for those who follow. 

Remember, You Live within the Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

Burn the Boats

Queme los barcos," or "Burn the Boats, because defeat is not an option".

Hernando Cortes was a conquistador and explorer who sailed to the New World in attempt to find treasure.  Many great leaders had failed before Hernando came along.  Hernando trained his soldiers during the day and built their morale at night.

When the time came for fighting and accomplishing their goal, Hernando told his men to burn their boats.  He went on to emphasize that defeat and retreat were not options.  He reassured his men and challenged them to be victorious.  Following their victory he reasoned, they would sail back in the enemy's boats.

Recently the University of Michigan's basketball team surprised many by beating Minnesota on their home floor.  This victory was necessary in order to enter the big dance at the end of the season.  Coach Beilein challenged the team by talking about burning the boats, because defeat was not an option.

This quote was mentioned in an article by CJ Lee, senior guard, in an article entitled Court Vision with C.J. Lee: Live Life without Regrets. 

From a mental fitness perspective, C.J. Lee understands what it takes to be victorious.  It takes a total commitment to your goal and the belief that failure and defeat are not options. 

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

New Year's Quitting

Quitting New Year's resolutions is something you did not want to happen, but very likely has occurred or will occur.  Most people give up on their New Year's resolutions before the end of February.

Why does this happen?  It is not an accident that people quit!  At The Positivity Blog, there was a very interesting posting on "Do you make these 7 mistakes when trying to keep your New Year's resolutions"?

These seven mistakes are:

1. You really don't want it that much.
2. You can use homeostasis with "time to give up".
3. You don't know how to handle your bad days.
4. You're not changing your environment to suit you.
5. You don't have a realistic plan and expectations.
6. You're focusing on too many resolutions at once.
7. You let temporary failure or mistakes lead to giving up completely. 

Can you see yourself making these mistakes?  These mistakes are all reflective of a stronger motivational pattern.  This motivational pattern can best be summarized as "we wanted to quit".

No matter how desirable and worthwhile your New Year's resolution may be, there will be a very strong power inside of you that wants to quit.

We need to accept the normalcy of wanting to quit.   We need to not deny the reality of our wanting to quit doing the things that are good for us.  We need to confront our motivation for quitting.

The desire for quitting will take many forms, such as the seven mistakes listed above and probably many, many more.

Give yourself freedom to quit and then decide whether you want to quit or not.  The motive to quit will be as strong as the motive to actualize your New Year's resolutions.  Therefore, it is important to make a decision about quitting.

Remember You Live with Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM

"Cogito ergo sum" according to Wikipedia has been the foundation of Western philosophy.  It also is the foundation of many psychological theories.  René Descartes is the philosopher, who is given credit for this statement.

"I Think, Therefore I Am" is a phrase used to establish our existence.  According to Wikipedia:

"The simple meaning of the phrase is that if someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist".

"I Think, Therefore I Am" is misquoted as "I Doubt, I Think, Therefore I Am".  This statement is very interesting, because doubting as well as thinking determines our existence.

These quotations also apply in the field of psychology.  "I Think, Therefore I Am" not only determines our existence, it also determines our quality of life. 

• Our thinking determines our feelings.
• Our thinking and feelings determine our behavior:
• Our thinking, feelings and behavior determine how we relate.
• Our thinking, feeling, behavior and relating determines our activities.
• Our thinking, feeling, behavior, and relating and activities determine our external circumstances.
• Our thinking, feeling, behavior, relating, activities, and external circumstances determine our health.

Therefore, it is safe to conclude that are thinking will determine the quality of our life.

In psychology, it is also true that "I doubt, I think, therefore I am".  Doubts, insecurities, anxieties, fears, disappointments and depression are just some of the factors that can determine our thinking, if we let them.  All of these negative factors well powerfully determine our thoughts, feelings, behavior, relating, activities, external circumstances and health.

It is important to be conscious of what we think, because our thinking is so powerful.  Today become aware and become very clear how important your doubts or thoughts are in determining the quality of your life.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

CURSE OR POOR MENTAL FITNESS

The Chicago Cubs again failed in their pursuit of becoming World Series champions.  Now it is over 100 years of falling short of their goal.  A lot has been written about the curse.

Is the underachieving Cub's failure to perform the result of a curse?  Or is their propensity for losing indicative of poor mental fitness?

I believe that the Cub's failure to achieve is because of poor mental fitness.  How else can you explain nine straight losses in post-season play?  The Chicago Cubs were the best team in the NL in terms of scoring runners in scoring position during the regular season.  How can you explain their failure to score more than two runs on average in six games over a two-year period?  How can you explain the extremely sloppy play from a team that was first in victories during the season?

Poor mental fitness is characterized by loss of momentum.  The Chicago Cubs lost momentum for winning prior to the beginning of the post-season play.  They rested their players and held tryouts for a reliever for post-season play.  There could be many other reasons why they lost their momentum.  For some momentum is created by winning and success. 

For champions momentum is the result of confidence derived by empowered thinking associated with mental fitness training and is not determined by winning and playing well.  Champions learn to maintain their momentum even when they play poorly and loose.

When players have poor mental fitness, momentum can be destroyed by playing poorly or losing.  Teams that have good mental fitness training, can maintain momentum even when they lose or play poorly.  The Chicago Cubs failed to show momentum in the playoffs following their wonderful season.

Poor mental fitness also results in problems with confidence.  False confidence and lack of confidence are symptomatic of players or teams with poor mental fitness.  The Chicago Cubs played with a lack of confidence, emotion and determination.

It is important to realize that momentum and confidence are not determined by our external accomplishments or determined by circumstances like the wind blows a kite.  No matter how bad our circumstances are and no matter how successful we've been in the past, it is important to live in the present.  We need to think about ourselves and our circumstances in a way that will generate momentum and confidence. 

Without momentum and confidence, playing poorly is to be expected.  For all of us, momentum and confidence are necessary for achieving success in the benefits of success in our lives.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Circumstances!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

How to Be a Star in Your Relationships

Magic Johnson was a basketball star by any one's standards.  He was a star on his high school and college teams, which were championship teams.  He was selected first in the 1979 NBA by the Los Angeles Lakers.  This was a very wise choice as Magic helped his team win a championship in his first year of professional basketball.  He won the MVP award for the finals that year.  Over his career he was the star on five NBA championship teams.  To read about more of his accomplishments, read the article on Magic from Wikipedia.

Magic valued his team members and team.  He realized that to win, he needed to bring out the best in his teammates.  Being the star, one would expect that he wanted his teammates to do what was ever necessary to make him a bigger star.

Wrong!  Magic did not expect or want his teammates to focus on bringing out Magic's talents and skills.  Instead Magic realized and believed that his goal was to help his teammates reach their potential and refine their skills.

Magic applied Pres. John F. Kennedy's famous lines from President Kennedy's January 20, 1961 Inaugural Address.

Magic's wisdom was expressed in these powerful words as written by Pat Riley's in his book, "The Winner Within".

"Ask not what your teammates can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your teammates."

Let's apply these words to our personal relationships.  After all, Pat Riley emphasized the importance of the family, when he wrote "the first and most important team in anyone's life is their family".

For husbands who want to be a star in their relationship, Ask not what your wife can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your wife.

For wives who want to be a star in their relationship, Ask not what your husband can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your husband.

It is very difficult, but important to step outside of our selfishness.  Too often we limit ourselves to expecting our spouse's job is to make our lives better and help us become more successful.  Too often we expect our spouses to live up to our expectations, satisfy our needs and achieve our goals. We expect our spouses to be our supporting cast.

One of the 50 greatest NBA players, Magic has a lot to teach us about teams and teamwork.  No matter how good or gifted we are in our relationship, our goal is not to be self-centered and demand attention.  Instead Magic gives us the secret of a satisfying, electrifying and victorious team. 

The secret is to encourage and help our partners achieve their goals and potential.  Our focus should be to bring out the best in our partners.  Our goal is to be empathetic and encouraging rather than critical.  Our goal is to be loving and empowering rather than judgmental.  Our goal is to be grateful rather than demanding.

Are you willing to commit to Magic's philosophy regarding successful teams?  Are you willing to enable your spouse to be the star for the well-being of your spouse and the team?

Remember, We Live within the Relationships Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Michael Phelps And Mental Fitness

The accomplishments of Michael Phelps are a tribute to his physical and mental fitness.  He is the winningest Olympian in the history of the Olympics.  He has 14 gold medals.  He has five more gold medals than any athlete in the history of the Olympics.  This year he achieved eight gold medals in swimming.  No one in the history of the Olympics has won more than eight gold medals in one Olympics.

AP National Writer, Paul Newberry wrote:

"Michael Phelps kept every swimsuit, every cap, every pair of goggles he wore during nine magical days at the Water Cube. Every memory will be savored, too, from goofing off with his US teammates to bowing his head not one, not two, but eight times to receive a gold medal at the Beijing Games.

“There are moments I’ll never forget,” he said.

Neither will the whole world."

Michael's successes and worldwide recognition are the result of his years of physical and mental conditioning.  According to Paul Newberry Michael was "the kid was afraid to put his head in to the water".

He overcame his fear.  He had a dream.  He focused on breaking Mark Spitz's achievement of seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games.  For many, this goal was perceived to be unobtainable, but not for Michael.

"Being able to have something like that to shoot for, it made those days when I was tired and I didn’t want to be there … it made those days easier to look at (Spitz) and say, ‘I want to do this,’” Phelps said. “I’m just thankful for him having done what he did.”

When Michael was 11 years old, he began a relationship with his coach, Bob Bowman.  12 years later he reached the pinnacle of success.  His commitment and persistency on a daily basis develop the skill and confidence for him to be the best in the world.

From Michael we can learn to overcome our fears and achieve unattainable goals. 

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach