I’ve never defended a dissertation…

By Steve Wize | February 11, 2025

I’ve never defended a dissertation, but I think I may know how it feels…

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be running Mental Fitness Workshops for selected, volunteer participants and measuring their progress throughout the course on six variables:

– Mental Fitness
– Growth Mindset
– Emotional Mastery
– Resilience
– Perceived Stress
– Stigma

No doubt, this is an amazing opportunity and I couldn’t be more thankful for it. Together with a team of researchers from Penn State Behrend, our participants will then have the option to have their results shared with Penn State as part of the Mental Fitness Research Study.

So much like a doctoral student dedicates years of their life to their dissertation, so have I dedicated about a decade to the development of Mental Fitness.

And much like that dissertation must be defended against the scrutiny of their peers, so must the concept of Mental Fitness be put to the test through the rigors of academic research and analysis.

Needless to say, it’s a bit nerve racking!

Will all the work be worth it? Will it prove to be effective? Will the process itself be overwhelming? Is the idea of Mental Fitness worthy of all this effort? Am I?

All these questions run through my head, but I try not to let them rent space there.

Mental Fitness is my passion. I’ve witnessed our clients have success throughout the program- that means the world to me.

Now it’s time for the next step. It’s scary, but I’m going to face it everyday with as much courage and confidence as I can.

After all, fear is just excitement in need of an attitude adjustment!

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