Mental, Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Part 1

I've been thinking a lot lately about goals: my goals and those of my clients. As their Trainer, it is essential that I have a firm grip on my goals and to make constant progress towards them. Otherwise, how can I be an advocate for my clients? How can I lead them to a healthier life if I, myself, am unable to sustain healthy choices in my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual life?

Today, I am going to focus on the mental tenacity that is needed to create and sustain goals. I will do this in question/answer format.

1. Am I perfect? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In order to continue to be a healthy human being, I need to have goals in order to be a better person. Short term, long term, mid term goals are very important to my mental well-being. It is a mind game, over and over, day by day. I love the challenge. I love to problem solve and to see progress. It makes me feel alive and like I am becoming a better person.

2. Am I 100% happy with who I am? NO!!! This is a very dangerous place to "park". It causes close minded thinking, disallows acceptance of others and of new ideas, and lures me into thinking that I have allllllll the answers and that anyone different is suspect or a jerk. I can always do better in some aspect of my life, and having mental strength allows me to strive to be a better person.

3. Am I weak sometimes? YES!!!!!!!!!! And that's okay. I just can't park there, have a pity party every dang day and bemoan my current state. I can't blame my problems on others: I have to create my own reality. 90% of my stuff can be solved (or not) according to my reaction to it. Onward!!

4. Do I beat myself up sometimes? No. Not anymore.

5. How did I reach the state of not beating myself up? By remembering that God created me, an imperfect human being, and it is my life's journey to perfect myself, to the best of my ability, even though I will never arrive. So why beat myself up? AND beating myself up takes away time better spent on problem solving and correcting the problem!!

Hope this helps.