Goal Setting and Visualization Olympic Style

The Olympics are drawing closer and we will soon be treated to a feast of athletic prowess.  One of the questions some people always wonder is how a person could get to such a high level of performance and strength?  While much is made of the physical strength and training surrounding these athletes, there is something to be said for their mental strength as well.

Mental Strength can be learned.  It is something we are all born with an innate ability to marshal when we need it, and with a little practice, visualization can help you to reach your goals, both for fitness and for life.

Self talk can be the most powerful weapon we have for our lives.  It can be used for both positive and negative purposes.  How many times have you set yourself up for failure simply by doubting your own good ability to actually complete what you set out to do?  While some of this positive self talk can seem narcissistic, it is an essential part of athletic training for most high caliber athletes.

I know that before any major karate tournament that I’ve ever done, I spend a good part of my preparation and warm up time doing mental warm ups.  I’m the one you’ll see off by myself, with the headphones on listening to music, lost in my own little world.  I don’t talk to anyone-in fact I don’t actually see anyone around me.  I am quite simply doing my Kata or fighting my fight in my head.  You might see me walk around in a circle or even see me talking to myself.  This is all part of the preparation for what is to come.  Seeing possibilities and developing counter strategies if I’m fighting; going over every part of my routine if I am competing in Kata.

Seen on the street or in a subway, this type of behavior would earn me a trip to the nearest mental health facility.  Prior to competition, however, it is essential for success.

This works with everyday life to a lesser extent as well.  Play out the mental script of what you want to happen in your head prior to performance is crucial for any endeavor-be it a presentation at work or a request for a raise.  If you are looking to start exercising more and getting into shape or eating right, visualize yourself doing it and you will find that it becomes almost second nature to follow through and do it.

Start your day planning it out in your head while you’re in the shower.  You don’t need to stare at yourself in a mirror or burn a candle or meditate unless you want.  Simply repeat in your head what you want to accomplish.  Visualise doing it over and over.  As you move through your day, take time to assess where you are with your plan-is it working?  If not, adjust what you need to and keep moving forward.

See it and you can be it-it really is that simple.  And it gets easier the more you do it.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Throw them back and say “catch!”  Unless they also come with sugar, a juicer, and a pitcher, lemons are pretty useless in and of themselves.

Been thinking a lot recently about the phrases people use to try to cheer each other up.  Some of them are cute, some are meant to make you feel better, some are simply said because the person doesn’t know what to say.  Very few of them have any value in real day to day life.

As a counselor I hear people use trite sayings and ’motivational’ phrases all of the time, but how much do they really work?  Most research tends to point to the fact that the only person who gets a happy feeling from motivational sayings is the person espousing them.  People tend to react in a positive way to specific praise and motivation, not so much to generalizations. Personally, I mostly swore off of them after hearing a mother say the lemon thing to her suicidal daughter at a hospital intake one night.  The look on the daughter’s face pretty much was a combination of utter disbelief and disgust, and completely mirrored what was in my thoughts at the moment.

So, instead of cute little motivational phrases, how do we motivate ourselves to change?

You hear many people talking about being ‘in the moment’, or being ‘present’ in their lives.  Many of us wander around on autopilot every day.  We do what we have to do to keep a roof over our heads and the light bill paid, but we rarely lift our heads up to see if there is anything else out there.  Unfortunately for quite a few people, the natural curiosity of trying to see what else there has been beaten into submission by a world and by well-meaning people who don’t have the ability, the courage, or the desire to imagine what else is out there.

The world is a place of infinite possibility and continuous reinvention and the more we try to deny that the less we really live, and the smaller our lives become. 

So when life hands you lemons remember that ‘life’ has handed you nothing.  You decide what you need and want-and if its important enough you will get there without the trite sayings or ‘motivational’  posters that everyone loves so much, but with the help of people who understand you and care about you no matter what life's handed you recently.

Chuck Norris and the Art of Kicking Butt

Depending on if you’re one of those glass half empty or glass half full types, life is a series of challenges to be met and obstacles to overcome.

I’m a half-empty kind of person as it has been my experience that just when you think things cannot get any worse...they do.  And in the most spectacularly worst way possible for the time. My life has become a true art of prepping for worst case scenarios-because in my experience it happens. Whether it is self-fulfilling prophecy or not I don’t know-that’s one for someone else to look at, but I’ve always looked at it as insurance against ‘how things are’.

Enter Chuck Norris-movie and TV version.  What does he have to do with my inability to see other than the worst of all possible results in this worst of all possible worlds?

Chuck Norris destroys worst possible results.  Over and over again-in every movie or TV show I’ve ever seen him in, Chuck Norris plows through the confusion and drama, gets to the point of the matter, and solves the problem.  Usually by use of some pretty awesome slow motion karate movies (or was that the Six Million Dollar Man?  I get confused sometimes).

Chuck Norris doesn’t worry about ‘worst case scenarios’ because for him, they don’t exist.  Events are just another bump on the road to awesomeness for him.

What lesson can be taken here?  Aside from the fact that it’s always good to prepare for any eventuality, the whole point is to live life in the now.

Tired old phrase-very over used, in all honesty.  But it really is true.  One of the reasons that Movie/TV Chuck works so well as a character and an archetype is because sometimes, all the plans you make don’t mean a thing and you have to be able to improvise.  You don’t have time to be scared, upset, or engage in pointless drama or endless evaluation of circumstances; you react to what is around you and take care of what is in front of you and move on.

Too often we get bogged down in all of the underlying ‘stuff’ life throws at us.  Most of it isn’t worth the time or the attention that we give it.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to simply deal with it and move one.  Not every event deserves further thought or contemplation.   As a society we’ve become too concerned about what the context of everything is and as a result, we allow ourselves to be run over too many times when we should be simply reacting.

Developing a healthy way to live and a healthy outlook on life sometimes requires us to strip away all of the pointless rumination and simply act.

Sometimes we all have to simply be Chuck Norris.

At Any Given Moment

Found a really cool poster on Pinterest awhile back and it really hit me hard.  I’ve been going through a spectacularly difficult time as of late, where absolutely nothing has broken my way.  Ended up in one of those ‘To Be or Not to Be” moments that many people have experienced recently.

I’m tired of fighting to simply keep a roof over my head and keep my lights on.  Somewhere along the line we’ve all lost track of the truly important things in life-one of which is help each other and caring about each other.

Then I found this quote on Pinterest: 

For where I was at the time it was powerful.  It was a true epiphany for me in terms of new goals to set for myself.

One way or another, I am going to find a way to get strong not just physically, but mentally too.  I hadn’t realized how much I had let my mental strength go until that moment.

We have the power to author our own stories and change our own outcomes, regardless of where we start from.  Even from in the basement-or even from UNDER the basement we can do it.  This is true for everything in life, be it losing weight, finding a job, or surviving a breakup.

All it takes is a simple plan-one step at a time.  When every problem in your life suddenly decides to gang up on you and hit you all at once, take charge.  Make a list.  Depressing?  Not if you repeat the idea that ‘this is not how the story is going to end’.  Pick the one biggest issue that is causing one or more of the other issues and solve it.  You don’t need the perfect solution at this point-you don’t have the luxury.  Any solution that works is the current perfect solution-fine tune it after you have time to breathe and evaluate.

It’s really amazing how empowering that can be.

This is not how my story is going to end-that I can promise- and yours doesn’t have to end ‘that way’ either.

Peace!

Three Things You Need to do for Life

What are the most important things you can do on the quest for fitness? Do you need three new exercises or a new diet? Maybe. Sometimes though all you need is attitude and the courage to push yourself.
The three essential traits that successful people have are very important to us in our quest for fitness and health. Without these traits we flail around running from one new fad to another, spending money on everything that comes along that promises us bigger and better. If it isn’t the ‘insider’s guide’ or the ‘real way’ to do something it’s new and it’s shiny and we want it.
 New and shiny these tips are not, and they require some work on your part to see them through. If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that you need to stick to something long enough to see if it works.

Focus 

 When you walk, do you look down at your feet? Or, do you look ahead to see what’s out there? If you are like most people you look ahead so you can see what is coming at you; keeps you from walking into poles and such.
 Focus in sport or exercise is much the same. If you lose sight of where you want to be-in your fitness quest-you get distracted by every shiny new thing that comes along.
In order to achieve your goals you need to be goal driven. You need to have a plan on how to get there, and you need to constantly be looking ahead to your ultimate objective. Many people are so afraid of not reaching their goals that they never truly set any. They look only to what is directly in front of them and they are so afraid of failing, they never give themselves the chance to succeed.
Take some time to define your goals-what do you really want-not only out of your quest for fitness, but for your life?

Limits 

 What are your limits? Do you really know? Have you ever really pushed yourself to the absolute limit of what you could do to find out where your ‘fail point’ is?
 One of the things that happens with all of us is that we get too comfortable with where we are. We stagnate and keep safely within our own little comfort zones. And we never find out what we are truly capable of doing. I’ve had people in karate classes swear up and down that they will ‘never’ be able to board break. Yet, once they realise how simple it is-once they realise they don’t need to limit themselves in what they can and cannot do, they are amazed at how simple it really is. Once they allow themselves to go beyond the limit they’ve placed on themselves, they learn to soar.
 This is true in every facet of life. Push yourself to your limits to discover what they really are-then soar beyond and find new ones.

Follow the Better Path

 How can you be more effective in what you do every day? What is the quicker/easier/more efficient way to do it? Once you start asking these kind of questions you really have to dig inside to find out.
 Even the healthiest and best adjusted person in the world has a rat’s nest of feelings and motivations under the surface. Many people refuse to look because they don’t want to know, but if you really want to reach the next level in anything you need to trust yourself and let your creative problem solving take over.
 Figure out what the best way is to do it-whether it is exercise and diet, cleaning your house, or life in general. Figure it out and do it.
 Life doesn’t have to be lived with limits unless we are too timid to push beyond to see what we are actually capable of doing. Carpe Diem is not just an old lame phrase- it’s a call to action, and a call to live life to the fullest.
Go for it.

Happy Weekend Everyone! We are finally getting rain here-delicious, wonderful, drought-ending (hopefully) rain. After a lot of hard work and numerous revisions, there is a book for sale that I'm proud to be associated with. Its about resistance bands and it has two really good workouts in it with several unique exercises that you won't find anywhere else It was written by a good friend of mine and someone I hope will come in as a guest-contributor someday, as he is a true inspiration to me and many others. Hope you decide to check it out-at $1.99 it's a steal, in my opinion. Can't wait to see the next one! Tomorrow will be all about getting organized-today I realized just how unorganized I am and how much time I waste simply trying to find things. I hope to have a few insights as to the whys or disorganization and how to make your life a little easier by breaking the habit. By the way, to get my friend's book simply go here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/163003

celebrity breakdowns

It may seem surprising that more people aren't deeply affected when the latest celebrity has a breakdown, but that's only because the general population is becoming immune. Constantly deluged with the heartbreaking spectacles of celebrities unable to cope with their tragic lives, most people simply cannot bear turn on the evening news and witness the painful ordeals that celebrities are forced to go through. Not since the existence of starving children in war torn countries overseas gained worldwide attention has the American public been so deeply touched. It is understandable why many people feel as if they can bear no more.

Nonetheless, tissue sales still soar every time Lindsay Lohan gets arrested for drunk driving and illegal possession of drugs, proving that not all Americans have become shell shocked to the plight of the rich and famous. Support groups were also formed in many communities to help people deal with their grief after Britney Spears shaved her head.

From: http://www.bestmastersincounseling.com