North Star Mental Fitness Blog

The Real Battle Is Inside the Mind

I read a wonderful article on Mental Fitness by Mark Salinas.  I urge you to read this article as it is loaded with mental fitness tips.

Mark wrote "athletes know their real battle is not so much on the field or track, but inside their mind". 

This quotation reminds me of a talk I had with a very skilled archer.  For 10 years, he could not get past shooting 90%.  Shooting 9 out of 10 arrows successfully sounded great to me, but not for a professional archer.  Only after studying mental fitness and sports psychology was he able to improve his shooting.

As I read what Mark wrote, I quickly realized that people's problems with their spouses, children, parents, employers or employees are not due to the other individual.  We like to blame other people and wish that they would change.  Professional athletes and athletes in the stadiums of human experience, know that the battle is inside their mind.  We must learn how to change how we think about the important people in our lives in order to change our feelings and reduce our conflicts.

From a mental fitness perspective, you can change your feelings by changing your thinking; not by trying to change the other person.  The other person does not have to make significant changes in order for us to change our feelings.  Your mental fitness can never be dependent on someone else.  Your mental fitness depends on your thinking and mind conditioning. 

Mark put it this way "it is a must that you manage your mental state".

Your thinking for victorious living depends on training your mind to be fit and tough.  This is why I became a Life and Mental Fitness Coach.

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Announcing the Mind Fitness Newsletter

For a long time I have been blogging.  In fact, I have made 350 posts.  I have enjoyed the new acquaintances I have made, including fellow bloggers with similar interests.  I have especially enjoyed and appreciated the comments made by readers of my blog.

As you may have noticed, the frequency of my posts has decreased.  I have been researching various ideas for increasing interpersonal interaction and communication between myself and the readers of this blog.  Blogging has been way too impersonal form me and I think for most of my readers.

I want to know my readers.  I want to know  your feelings, thoughts and goals.  I want to interact with you, my readers, while you are applying mental fitness concepts to improve the quality of your lives.  I want to know where you are stuck and where you are progressing.

I have chosen to start a newsletter by the name of "Mind Fitness".  I have some great ideas regarding how to make mental fitness more personal and interactive.  I'll also be asking you for your ideas.

You may have noticed on the upper right corner of my blog, there is a "Sign Me Up" place for you to click and become a recipient of the newsletter.  The newsletter will be free.  I hope you will sign up.  However, I hope you will only sign up if you want to interact and feel empowered in applying mental fitness in your life.

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Boren Divorces Michigan Football Team

Divorces and blending family issues occur in sports as well in families.  Lloyd Carr resigned as coach of the U of Michigan football team and most of his coaches were not rehired.  Some players including potential stars left the team.  Justin Boren and his team remained with their mother, the U of Michigan.

Problems really started brewing when the new step-father, Rich Rodriquez divorced West Virginia to take over the leadership role at U of M.  Even now, Coach Rod is still in the middle of a very messy divorce from West Virginia with the unfortunate allegations and legal entanglements common in divorce. 

The mother or U of M football hired Coach Rod to change the culture and family values at the U of M.  Too many losses to Ohio State, underdogs liked Appalachian State, spread offenses and bowl games.  Like so many sons and daughters in families of divorce, Justin Boren and some of his teammates did not like the new father figure changing the family dynamics and culture.  Coach Rod has become the "evil step-father" pushing the mother's "lax children" to greater achievement through hard work, strict rules and new expectations.

Justin like many children in divorce has verbally acted-out and ran away from home.   

What Is Needed To Turn Your Relationship into A Team?

Is your relationship a team?  Has your marriage become a team?  Do you want your relationship to become a team?

It may sound foreign to talk about families, marriages and significant relationships with analogies from the world of sports.  In the world of sports the team becomes the all-important focus.  Individual accomplishments and achievements become secondary to the welfare and success of the team.

Talking about your significant relationships as a team can provide insights for strengthening and developing stronger relationships.  From a mental fitness perspective, in team sports, it is important to become a committed team member rather than striving for individual brilliance or mercilessly criticizing a team member.

Every day I talk with people in relationships where there is a lost sense of "team.  For many couples, I believe, they've never thought of establishing a relationship from the perspective of a team.  In some relationships the members of the group seem to be antagonistic and opponents rather than teammates.

Jim Harbaugh is a former quarterback for the University of Michigan football team and currently is coach of the football team at Stanford University.  The legendary University Michigan Football Coach, Bo Schembechler coached Harbaugh.  In George Cantor's book "I Remember Bo..." Harbaugh shared what he learned from Bo about the team.

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED

"Do You Prefer To Love Or Be Beloved" ?  This was the question proposed by Beth from Living a Quotable Life.  In this article Beth revealed that she prefers to love.  She hypothesized that to "be loved" makes a person vulnerable.

Beth shared:

"Me? I’m a Lover. Why? It’s simple. I’m a coward. It’s easier to Love. It’s far simpler for me to give Love. What? It’s true. As long as I’m giving of my Love than the focus is on the individual who is receiving the Love … not me.....

"We all want to be Loved. However, to truly allow someone to Love you all barriers have to be dropped. Walls must be broken down. You must allow yourself to be vulnerable. I detest my vulnerability. Again, I am a coward. I don’t like to let people in. I am worn out. I am tired. I am jaded. I have been hurt one too many times".

After reading what Beth shared,

Nine Ingredients for For Creating a Wonderful Marriage

Knowing the nine ingredients for creating a wonderful relationship with will give you a road map for creating the marriage you have always wanted and also a gage for measuring your current relationship.  After reading this list, I wanted to share it with you.

Judith S. Wallerstein, who is co- author of The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Last, presented Nine Psychological Tasks for a Good Marriage for the APA Help Center.

From a psychological and mental fitness perspective, these nine ingredients are very sound and necessary for a healthy relationship.

These are Dr. Wallerstein's nine research findings for a wonderful marriage.

The Power of Expecting Frustrations in Relationships

Expecting Frustrations in Relationships - Is a Basic Reality for Happiness in Relationships!

All relationships will have frustrations.  The frustrations are just different for different people.  The solution is not to be a loner as a way of avoiding relationship frustrations.  For being a loner also will have its frustrations.

It doesn't take very long for a person in a relationship to know there will be frustrations.  Nevertheless, most people react to relationship frustrations as if they should not be present in loving relationships.  Wrong!

Even in loving relationships, frustrations always exist.

How can people work through frustrations in relationships, so there is less emotional pain, misunderstanding, alienation, marital conflict, familial dysfunction, midlife crisis or divorce?

Nothing Is As Bad As It Seems

"Nothing is as good as it seems.  Nothing is as bad as it seems.  Reality is somewhere in between."  Lou Holtz made this statement in talking about Notre Dame's dismal start to the 2007 season.

There is no doubt that Notre Dame has played poorly this year.  Lou Holtz is a veteran coach.  What a wonderful message to give to a struggling team.  "Nothing is as bad as it seems" is a message of hope and encouragement.

Too often we engage in catastrophic thinking.  Life sometime seems so overwhelming.  We struggle to cope with the recurring stresses in our lives.  We feel stuck in circumstances that seem overbearing.  We tried everything and nothing seems to work.  We feel defeated.  Personality conflicts endure. Misunderstandings and insensitivities abound.  Losses in life accumulate.  Maybe it's a job loss or declining health.  Maybe it's a death of someone close to you.  Maybe it's an illness of a child or family member.  Maybe its financial or spiritual.  Maybe it's called midlife crisis, divorce, bankruptcy, cancer.

We are convinced it's as bad as it seems.

Naming Functions of the Mind

Yesterday I blogged about one of the two objectives I had in creating The North Star Mental Fitness Program and the accompanying e-book, I Live within the Environment Created by My Choices.

Because we all tend to forget ideas and thoughts, yesterday I blogged about the importance of naming thoughts and ideas.  When thoughts have names, it is much easier to recall them from our memory banks.

My second reason for using names in my mental fitness program was to use names as a way of identifying concepts that are important for mental fitness and also for differentiating different concepts important for mental fitness.

Because we need organization in our life, I endowed certain thoughts and concepts necessary for mental fitness with names.  Concepts important for mental fitness were given different names.

Is it a bad idea to name mental fitness thoughts and concepts?

Thank You for Giving Me Back My Parents!

"Thank You For Giving Me Back My Parents," she repeated through her tears.  She had just had a tremendous release from lifelong feelings of rejection.

Both of her parents are deceased.  Rest assured, her parents did not come back to life.

What did she mean, when she said "Thank You For Giving Me Back My Parents?"