North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Living in a Recession

Recession is here.  We do not know what will happen tomorrow, let alone today.  There seem to be so many major forces controlling the economy of the entire world.  The major question is how do we survive psychologically as well as financially.

The North Star Mental Fitness Program has 15 major strategies for coping with recession.  The strategies can give you hope.  The strategies will allow you to be free and independent.  The strategies will allow you to overcome feeling emotionally devastated as you loose your homes, jobs, finances and savings.  The strategies can become tools for making your life decisions; big or small.  The strategies can help you learn to take care herself in all situations, even in a recession.

                                            THE 15 STRATEGIES

OF THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM AND

I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED

BY MY CHOICES

1.  THE FREEDOM CHOICE:  How to become free from your past and present                                                  

                                                       problems.

2.  THE RIGHT CHOICE:  Procedure to change thoughts, feelings, behavior,

                                          relationships, activities and external circumstances.

3.  THE WAKE UP CHOICE:  Identification of your wants, needs and what you need                       

                                                      to do to take care of you and be successful.

4.  THE BIG CHOICE:  Procedure and criteria for caring for you.

5.  THE POWER CHOICE:  Three step procedure for success and successful caring for

                                                  you.

6.  THE RESPONSIBLE CHOICE:  Procedure for managing frustrations.

7.  THE TURN AROUND CHOICE:  Procedure to stop “messing up”.

8.  THE CHECK POINT CHOICE:  Procedure to monitor and evaluate your choices.

                                                

 9.  THE TIME CHOICE:  Purpose and procedure for living in the present.  

                                       

10.  THE RELATIONSHIP CHOICE:  Procedure for heartwarming relationships.                                                                  

11.  THE RELATIONSHIP TURN AROUND CHOICE:  Procedure to stop “messing          

                                                                                                  up” in your relationships.

 

12.  THE CHILD CHOICE:  Having fun, spontaneous emotions and activities.

13.  THE ADULT CHOICE:  Making logical, practical and rational decisions.

14.  THE PARENT CHOICE:  Being a good parent to yourself.

15.  THE LETTING GO CHOICE:  Procedure for letting go of “messing up,” guilt and        

                                                               painful emotions.  

                                                           

With these 15 mental fitness strategies, you can emotionally survive and thrive in difficult times like today's financial world.  With the strategies you can psychologically prepare yourself to make successful decisions in your financial life.  I urge you to seek financial guidance from experts.  With the mental fitness program and financial guidance from the export of your choice, you can begin to live in a thriving environment.

 

If you are interested in purchasing these programs, please e-mail me.

 

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

 

Dr. Hal

 

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

 

 

Counseling or Mental Fitness Training

I recently wrote the following post at Healthcare.com and wanted to share it with you.

I am often asked what is the difference between counseling and mental fitness training.  This is a very important question.  The differences are significant.  For some people counseling is a better match.  For other people mental fitness training is preferable.

It is very difficult to reduce all forms of therapy into a brief synopsis.  Therapies usually emphasize the individual’s discovery and understanding of the nature of their problems in order to overcome the problems.  Different therapies may analyze family history, interpersonal dynamics, irrational thought patterns, unconscious dynamics, and feelings as the road to recovery.  Therapies are based on self-analysis, usually of one’s past.

Mental fitness training is not based on self-analysis.  Mental fitness training is learning new strategies for making decisions and becoming psychologically stronger.  Remember, the strategies in the North Star Mental Fitness Program are the empowering strategies for change learned from successful clients in therapy.

If you do not want to enter therapy and discover your own successful and empowering strategies, then you can learn from others.  You can learn 15 different ways to solve problems and to make yourself stronger.  You can become stronger than your problems.  You can be strong enough to solve your problems by applying one or as many of the mental fitness strategies as you choose.

Mental fitness training takes many forms:

1. You learn 15 or less strategies for solving problems or reaching your goals. 
2. You think about your life, problems and goals from the perspective of these 15 strategies.
3. You can apply these solutions for any problem in your life or when you want to make new changes in your life. 
4. You can keep your focus with these 15 solutions, when you are working on changing lifelong patterns or reaching long-range goals
5. You can use the mental fitness strategies for improving your self-concept, going beyond your comfort zone and for determining your emotions.
6. You can repeat the mental fitness exercises much as you do physical exercises in order to make yourself mentally and psychologically stronger.

Both counseling and mental fitness training can empower you to make changes in your life.  It is your choice to use either service, when you are dissatisfied with your life and what more for yourself.  

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

DOES PHYSICAL FITNESS MAKE YOU MENTALLY FIT?

One of my readers recently lost a lot of weight and talked about how her physical fitness improved her mental fitness.

There are many people who believe that becoming physically fit automatically will make you mentally fit.  Becoming physically fit will not make you mentally fit! 

Certainly, when one has achieved a goal and become physically fit, that person will feel successful and confident.  They may like themselves a lot better and their self-concept may improve tremendously. 

Physical fitness can significantly improve the quality of one's life, both physically and mentally.  However, physical fitness does not automatically translate into mental fitness.  If you become physically fit, there is no guarantee that you will be mentally fit.

In fact, there are numerous well-trained athletes, who fail to reach their dreams, because of poor mental fitness.  They spent a lot of time training your body and their professional skill, but ignore training their mind for victory and success.

People need both the mind and body of a champion to become a champion.  Mental Fitness is more than feeling good following following success.  Mental fitness is learning how to think like a champion and rigorously exercise the mind for overcoming obstacles and maximizing performance.

There is a difference between feeling and training.  If you wan lasting success, it is important to train for success.  Successful feelings without training the mind dissipate quickly.

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Do You Know Why?

Have you ever wondered why people exercise?

Do you know why they continue to exercise?

In my last post, Do You Believe That Your Life Experiences Have Made You Mentally Fit, I emphasized that life experiences, although grueling at times, do not make us physically or mentally fit.

In order to become mentally or physically fit, it is necessary to go beyond the experiences of everyday living and perform exercises on a regular basis.

So what are the general benefits for becoming mentally and physically fit?

First of all, mental and physical fitness can make us healthier.  Don't we all want to be healthier?

Secondly, mental and physical fitness training makes us stronger for managing our everyday lives.  Mental and physical fitness training can make us stronger for coping with the stresses and demands of everyday living.

Successful managing of life experiences will not necessarily make us physically and mentally stronger.  In contrast, successful mental and physical fitness training will make us stronger in managing life experiences.

If you want to be physically stronger in coping with everyday life experiences, then commit to a physical fitness program.

If you want to be mentally and emotionally stronger for coping with everyday life experiences, then commit to a mental fitness program like The North Star Mental Fitness Program.

Remember, You Live within Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

There Is a Cure for Choking And Loss of Momentum

"Tonight I was playing in the finals of a local tournament and missed the nineball in two games. Due to these misses, I came in second place.

Is there a cure for this disease?"

 

This was the gut wrenching plea from a frustrated billiard player, who wrote "Choking nine balls? Help!

 

Is there a cure for choking and loss of momentum?

Choking and loss of momentum are seen on a daily basis in every sport.  Errors and mistakes are inevitable and part of amateur and professional sports. 

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune humorously wrote about choking by one of baseball's super stars, Soriano:

Play To Win; Not to Lose

The University of Michigan football team is undergoing a transition period.  There has been a coaching change.  Hopefully there will also be a change in motivation and psychology.

Lloyd Carr has a wonderful reputation as a coach.  He has been well-liked by his players, fellow coaches and most people he has met.  He has been a role model for running a football program with morals.

Unfortunately, Coach Carr appeared to motivate his team with the philosophy to not lose.  As a result the team game plans were entirely predictable, unimaginative and way too conservative.  His game plans built on the philosophy to not lose prevented his teams from beating teams who were motivated creatively and imaginatively to win.

Too often, people are like conservative coaches.  We play our lives not lose.  We do not play our lives to win!  We motivate ourselves to not make mistakes rather than taking the risk of going beyond our comfort zones.  We do not set goals for self-actualization, instead settling for its self-preservation.

The Importance of Mental Fitness

The APA Help Center has a wonderful Interactive drawings of the human body that show the effect of stress on our bodies.  Please visit Mind/Body Health: Interactive.

"Mental fitness is as important as physical fitness. Regularly exercising keeps your body fit with no ounce of extra fat to be seen anywhere.

Have you ever thought of how much extra, unnecessary thoughts, which are more harmful to you than bodily fat, keeps accumulating in your mind continuously, leading you towards all kinds of maladies and diseases? Yes, your unhealthy mind is a major factor behind even your most common cold, fever, stomach infections, etc.

I Empowered Myself!

Self-doubt and lacking confidence are often experienced by people, who reenter the world of employment after an illness or raising their children. 

Such was the mindset of this middle-aged women. She has raised her children.  Now, she has been successful in her job, but her perceptions of herself have lagged behind her accomplishments.  She struggled with accepting her success and the benefits of her success.

She thought she didn't deserve good things.  She felt she didn't deserve the accolades and consequences from being successful.

She realized that there was a golden ring in front of her.  She always has been ambivalent about reaching for the ring of opportunity and success. She knew it was there, but she just couldn't reach out for this ring of success.  She worried and was fearful she couldn't measure up.  So she remained in an inhibited and fearful comfort zone.

Why Quitting Smoking Doesn't Work

- Each day, nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking
- Nearly 2,000 will become regular smokers.
- Annually 800,000 new smokers join the ranks of the diseased.

Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. According to the latest smoking statistics in 2001, a national survey of high school students revealed that the overall prevalence of current cigarette use was 28 percent. Nearly 20 percent of 12th graders, 12 percent of 10th graders and 5.5 percent of 8th graders smoke cigarettes daily. These statistics provided by Credible Reviews.

For more statistics on smoking in the text of smoking, I refer you to Smoking Statistics provided by the World Health Organization.

All these statistics indicate the need for people to stop smoking.  The reality is clear.  Smoking is bad for health and the health of others.

Although it is realistically and practically important to stop smoking, motivating yourself to "quit" or "stop" smoking is likely to fail for the following reasons: 

THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM

ARE YOU HAPPY?

DO YOU FEEL FREE?

DO YOU HAVE PEACE OF MIND?

DO YOU HAVE POWER OVER YOUR LIFE?

SIMPLIFY AND REVITALIZE YOUR LIFE WITH I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED BY MY CHOICES AND THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM!

Mental fitness training can take you from where you are now to where you want to go with your life.  Don't settle for where you are now, when mental fitness trainee can take you where you want to be.  You can be the best you can with these cognitive fitness programs.

You can have the life that you want with programs presented in the two e-books, I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED BY MY CHOICES and THE NORTH STAR MENTAL FITNESS PROGRAM.  With this training you can better yourself and your life.  If you have a problem, we can provide the tools for you to find your solution.

Do you want a manual to help you remain focused in your life?