North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Taking Care of Herself Crowded out Her Paranoia and Panic

I was pleasantly surprised when one of my clients informed me that she no longer had paranoia and panic.  I looked at her with disbelief.  Although I have known her very well, I had no idea she suffered from paranoia and panic.

She had made very significant improvements in her life.  She has been living one day at a time with a focus on taking care of herself.  I knew her depression had significantly lifted.  I knew her self-concept had significantly improved.  I knew she was coping effectively with the uncertainties in her life.

She has frequently verbalized how relaxed and confident she feels now that her mind is fit.  She has become empowered to make good choices.

I was surprised and stunned initially.  Then I realized her unexpected freedom from paranoia and panic was confirmation of the mental fitness theory.  This young woman have become stronger than her problems.  

She is living proof that mentally fit individuals overcome problems in their lives without having to focus on solving specific problems.

When people focus on taking care of themselves in the present, they avoid all types of problems and unwittingly solve many of their recognized problems.

Taking care of yourself will empower you to be stronger than your problems.

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

You Don't Get Any Better, When....

"When you start taking things personally that is when you don't get better"!

This was University of Michigan football player, Morgan Trent's profound, psychological insight regarding accepting intense, emotional instruction from his coaches.  Sam Webb from Go Blue Wolverine interviewed Morgan Trent regarding the yelling and highly confrontive coaching style of the new coaches.

Morgan Trent went on to say about taking things personally:

"You want to get upset and that never helps you out.  You have to understand and get to a point where you have to realize they are only trying to help you. 

Rich Rod always says that he always wants to take you to a place that you can't take yourself and he does.  It is a difficult painful project but that is his main goal."

Morgan also had a wonderful perception.  Oftentimes, when people take things personally, they feel disrespected.  Morgan Trent realizes that his coaches are not trying to be disrespectful.  He told Sam

"Our coaches are never disrespectful.  I don’t know what you have heard.  They weren’t coming in and acting crazy and cussing everybody out just for fun and trying to break you down.  It wasn’t that.  It is just a different style of coaching.  They still have respect for us and they would never do anything to disrespect us or anything like that.”

In our personal lives we we must learn to not take coaching personal. Sometimes we enroll in classes or activities, where we will be coached.  On other occasions, we and our significant others try to coach each other.

In our personal lives, it is also important to learn how to not feel disrespected, put down, and maintain the perception that our family members are trying to help us instead of attack or demean us.

Too often, our insecurities intrude into our perceptions and as a result we personalize highly emotional reactions from those who want to help us.

Although it is hard, it is emotionally more satisfying to remember that our significant others are respectful, helpful and loving even when their coaching techniques are difficult to accept.  

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

My next blog will focus on learning how to not personalize in situations where people are not trying to be helpful

Mental Fitness Programs Are Not the Same

Cognitive fitness and mental fitness programs are becoming more popular and prolific.  When I first began the North Star Mental Fitness Program in the late 1980s, mental and cognitive training programs did not exist. 

The North Star Mental Fitness Program is really a Life Fitness program designed to make the mind function in a more organized, efficient, confident and focused manner. 

Repetition of successful thought patterns is the basis of this program.  The thought patterns were discovered in the process of psychological counseling of hundreds of clients.

The North Star Mental Fitness Program consists of 15 thought patterns or exercises.  This program, for example, provides exercises to help people make choices to:

• Learn how to become free from your past or current problems,
• Learn how to recognize when you need to make changes in your life,
• Learn how to maintain successful life focusing,
• Learn the three step process for success,
• Learn the successful strategy for coping with frustration,
• Learn how to turn self-defeating problems into successes,
• Learn to live a balanced life,
• Learn how to live in the present,
• Learn how to have satisfying and sensitive relationships. 

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

Do You Have An Attention Problem?

Life decisions begin the moment you awaken and end when you go to sleep at night.  During your waking hours, you make hundreds of decisions.  The nature of your particular circumstances will not matter.  What matters is the fact that you are perpetually making difficult, life decisions throughout the day.

Life decisions are becoming more difficult, because of the economy and raising fuel costs. 

Don't Forget The Importance of Our Minds

The possibility of retraining the brain has perhaps been the greatest discovery in the last century.  For years, the possibility of training or retraining the brain did not exist.  Now that we realize that the brain operates under neuroplasticity, a new frontier is in front of us.

Michael J. Formica, MA wrote an interesting article, Neuroplasticity:  the Revolution in Neuroscience and Psychology.  Michael wrote,  "Do I sound excited? I am. When I was first introduced to the idea of neuroplasticity, I thought it was interesting. The more I learn about the subject, the more I realize that we are on a frontier."

Sharon Begley wrote the book "Train Your Mind and Change Your Brain".  Sharon emphasized the importance of training one's mind to to change the brain.  In this book, she presents the exciting research regarding changing brain.  The excitement of discovering neuroplasticity had placed a great emphasis on the brain. 

Sharon Begley wrote in Train Your Mind, Kick the Habit"

"Just to be clear, if cognitive-behavior therapy works to reduce drug cravings—and years of research on addiction treatment has suggested that it can, at least in some people—then that should be enough. But there is no denying the power of the neuro-paparazzi: When scientists can produce a dramatic picture demonstrating how some intervention alters patterns of brain activity that underlie a disease or problematic behavior , it is more persuasive than if they merely reported that people's behavior had changed."

Researchers have developed numerous programs to change the brain.  In our excitement to change the brain, let's not forget the importance of changing our minds.  It is extremely important to perform exercises to change our minds in order to improve the quality of our lives. 

Let's not lose sight of the importance of changing the quality of our lives, which we can do by changing our minds.

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

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

How Many Successes Do You Need Before You Can Conclude You Are Successful

Recently I talked to a middle-aged woman, who was asked to take a position in a large business.  In order to take this advancement, she had to go way beyond her comfort zone.  A hard-working woman with limited work experience, she openly questioned her ability to succeed.

Every day she did the best she could.  At first she was really overwhelmed, but she still applied herself.  She succeeded on a daily basis for over a year.  She was shocked, when she was asked to take a position with even more responsibility.

She once again agreed to take the new position and hoped that she could be successful.  She has now had two years of successes.  She has had over 730 days of successes.

I think she was shocked when I asked her if she considered herself to be successful.  I don't believe she had ever concluded that "I am a success".

Yes, I Can

"Yes, I Can" is a wonderful affirmation.  This affirmation will program the mind for success in all areas of one's life.

I have been very surprised by the difficulties many clients have with making success generating affirmations. 

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