The Importance Of Not Kicking The Can (Your Life) Down The Road.

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I'm absolutely, positively sure that anyone who has been alive long enough has at some point point in their life uttered the following or some iteration of the following phrases: "I'll do it tomorrow!" "I'll do it later on today!" We're all guilty of it at some time or another. When it comes to myself personally, and I'm sure that many of you can relate, but I have noticed that it is normally things that I'd rather not do that I tend to put off for another time. Another phrase of viewing this that many of you have probably heard of is "kicking the can down the road." Now I wasn't really aware of this saying till I heard various politicians and political pundits talking about it in regards to not addressing the trillions of dollars worth of debt that the United States is currently in. During the height of this issue of national debt, you had various politicians that would rather continue with the downward descent into debt rather than addressing the issue head on. Though the issue has seemingly taken a backseat to other matters, the downward spiral of spending more money that we're bringing in still exists. Now why do I bring all of this up some of you may wonder? Well from my perspective, we can almost compare our everyday lives to that of a politician in a sense. Most politicians will say just enough to get themselves elected. Then it seems that once they get elected into their position, they rarely make good on most the promises they make. However, they also do just enough to get you to vote for them again and again. I believe the same concept applies to us in various areas of our lives. Rather than addressing the important things in our lives that we'd do good to address as soon as possible, we often put these things off for another time. Just like I brought up the phrase of kicking the can down the road, our lives can be similar to the proverbial can, and we're just kicking it down the road without thinking of the consequences.

Back once again to hopefully bring you all some fresh game, it's your boy Brad H. coming through, and I'd like to welcome you all once again to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! This is a space where I bring out my perspective on various topics that I think could be helpful towards helping us stay motivated. Hope all is going good and well for everyone out there, and that the new year has been treating you all fine thus far. Hopefully for those of you that have set those resolutions are staying on track and haven't broken them as of yet. So I'm going to bring some more football talk for my soapbox this week. I can't speak for anyone else, but boy have the last two weeks of the NFL Playoffs been a wild circus. We saw New England get knocked out in the first round, and the number one seeded Ravens go down in their first game. Both teams were taken out by the Tennessee Titans, a team that was considered to be one of the biggest underdogs. So we're now down to four teams for the conference championships. We got Tennessee taking on the Chiefs, and the 49ers going up against the Packers. I believe the Titans magic will end tomorrow at the hands of the Chiefs, but it also wouldn't surprise me in the least if they pull another upset. I really don't know what to think between Green Bay and the 49ers. I don't care for either team, but I would rather see the 49ers win since I have a close relative that has loved them for a long time. It is so hard to believe that the Super Bowl is only a couple of weeks away. It has definitely been an interesting season, and hopefully the games tomorrow continue that trend. So now that I've gotten on my soapbox for a bit, lets talk about the topic at hand on the importance of not kicking the can down the road.

Before I get more into why I believe it is of importance for us not to kick the can of life down the road in our lives, I want to preface this topic by saying that the "can" that I'll be referring to in regards to this topic is one that's subjective. It is up to us as individuals to define exactly what are the things in our lives that we're putting off now in favor of doing them later down the road. This is one of those things that you will have to evaluate in your own life. The examples that I plan on using may not be applicable for you personally, but I hope that they can be examples that we all can relate to in some capacity. Now I mentioned earlier how all of us are guilty of putting off things. One of the things I've noticed personally in regards to delaying things is that many of the things that we tend to delay are often things we'd rather not do in the first place. How many of you have taken a good look at your room and knew that it was due for a cleaning, but you just brushed it off and said to yourself that you'll do it tomorrow? There is also another, more emotional aspect of putting off things that affects us and that is fear. Yes, fear can play a huge factor in whether you kick the can down the road. There are just certain things in this life that we're afraid to do, but we know they have to be done if we're going to have peace in our lives. Both fear and slow poking it when it comes to doing the things we should are giant obstacles that many of us face.

Now when I talk about slow poking it as I referred to earlier, what is an example of this? I used the example of cleaning your room, but how about something that could be seen as being more urgent. Imagine a person that finds out that they are at risk for developing diabetes and in order to ward of getting it, they have to make some changes to how they eat. If this person lolly gags without taking the changes they have to make serious, the chances of coming down with the full blown disease will increase. Anything that has to do with regards to benefiting you from a health perspective isn't something that should be taken lightly. A person in this situation that doesn't take it serious is the personification of kicking the can down the road. When it comes to fear and kicking the can down the road, there are a number of examples that we could use. Imagine a situation where you've done something to wrong someone else, and you know you have to face them in order to rectify whatever you've done. You keep telling yourself that today will be the day you face them, but you continuously put it off because of the potential reaction you'll get from that person. Now being nervous or fearful in a situation of this nature is quite normal, but as with the slow poking example with the diabetes that I've given, nothing positive can really come from delaying any situation that should be addressed in a more timely manner. I believe this is where the importance of not kicking the can down the road comes into play.

So with all of that being said, why do I feel it is important to not kick the can down the road? From my own personal perspective on this topic, prolonging things that can be done today can often make whatever situation you're in worse later on down the road. I believe the downside of problems, whatever they may be is that they have the chance to fester and grow when they're not addressed in a timely manner. I mentioned earlier how the debt in the United States is out of control, but imagine a scenario where tackling the can of debt wasn't being kicked down the road. The debt likely wouldn't be at the level where it's at now, with it being so out of control that it probably can't be fixed without it affecting everybody. The same applies with the diabetes example I gave earlier. When it comes to the fear aspect of kicking the can down the road, it is best to just go ahead and face whatever it is you fear head on if possible. If you've wronged someone, it is best to go ahead and try and make it right as fast as you can. The longer you wait to do so, the greater the chances become where that person isn't willing to forgive you. There is a popular quote that many people in the health and fitness industry use. It goes; "Day one or one day, you decide." I believe this is a saying that could be applied to any area of life. Kicking the can of your life down the road only leads to bigger problems in the future. Though it may be hard to face issues head on at times, we have to work on doing so.

Well that's what I got for you all this week. I hope that some of you found it helpful and inspiring. This has been another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I am Brad H., and I'd like to thank you all once again for checking out my perspective. As always, if you have any comments to add, please feel free to do so in the comment section. You can also connect with me on Twitter if you'd like. I can be reach at the handle @BradrickH. I hope you all are having a great weekend so far, and continue to stick with those resolutions and goals that you've made this year. Have a great week ahead, and I'll see you all on the next post. Peace!

©2020 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Maintaining A Steady Stride Towards Your Goals.

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Anyone that has set any type of goals for themselves knows that goal setting consists of both high and low points while we're aiming to achieve them. There are going to be times where you set a goal for yourself that works out exactly the way you planned it to. This type of achievement is what the majority of us look for when we set goals. We want whatever we're looking to do to work out on the first attempt. The other side of this is that there are going to be occasions where working towards a goal that you've set for yourself is going to come with stumbling blocks. These are the times when we find ourselves facing adversity towards reaching our goals. The tribulations that we face in these type of instances play a major role in whether we accomplish our goals or not. I dare say that depending on what kind of goals you set for yourself, the latter is likely the path that a good many of us will have to face. Another aspect of goal setting that I've pondered on recently is the aspect of speed. Some of you may wonder what exactly does speed have to do with setting goals for yourself? Not only does speed correlate with reaching our goals, it is often times one of the major driving forces in our lives. Various goals have different speeds at which they're reached. There will be some goals that can be reached very quickly, while there are some that are more time consuming. For clarity on the topic at hand for this week, I'm primarily coming from a perspective of the goals that require more time to reach. That being said, regardless of how long certain goals take to reach, from a mental aspect of viewing this, most of us are going to want to come out of the blocks fast. I personally see this as a potenially bad thing, which is why I believe that it is of importance for us to maintain a steady stride towards our goals.

HAPPY 2020 EVERYONE! This is your boy Brad H. coming at you all once again, and I'd like to welcome you all to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! This is a space where I address various topics that I think about in my everyday life, and through the thoughts I have, I aim to put them into words that will hopefully help in keeping us motivated. I'd like to say thanks once again to the long time readers, and a big welcome to anyone that is reading for the first time. I hope that the new year has been treating you all well so far. So for my soapbox in this week's topic, I'm going give my thoughts on the NFL playoffs that are starting today. It sort of feels like déjà vu for me because I remember writing last year during Wild Card weekend, and the Houston Texans were playing first just like they are today. So we got the Houston Texans and Buffalo Bills taking on each other first. Not sure who is going to win that one. I'm rooting for Houston, but I'm skeptical about their quarterback Deshaun Watson as of late. He hasn't been playing all that well in my opinion. Maybe I'm just a little bitter because I had him in one of my fantasy leagues. Next game is the New England Patriots vs. the Tennessee Titans. Normally we would predict the Patriots would win, but I predict the Titans to take this game. The Patriots offense has been terrible this year, and the Titans have been playing well for the past several weeks. Tomorrow we got the Vikings taking on the Saints in New Orleans. I believe the Saints got a huge chip on their shoulder after last season, and I think they win tomorrow. Finally for Wild Card weekend, we got the Eagles and the Seahawks squaring off. I don't like the Eagles, so I'm pulling for Seattle. I would give Seattle the edge, but the Eagles are like cats; they have many lives it seems. For those of you that are watching the NFL playoffs, what are some of your predictions? Feel free to leave that in the comment section. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, lets talk more about the importance of maintaining a steady stride towards your goals.

Before going into the importance of maintaining a steady stride in our various quests towards reaching our goals, I want to start off by saying that the main reason that I chose to bring this up as a topic is primarily due to the fact that we are officially in a new year. A new year is often viewed as a clean slate for a lot of people. I'm sure that many of you will be setting new goals for yourself this year, and my hope is that this topic can be used as a reference for us all in aiding us towards reaching those goals. Now I spoke in the preview of how speed plays a large role when it comes to our goals. The biggest reason why I feel that speed matters comes from the fact that different type of goals have different expectations for how long they will take to reach. You are going to have some goals that you can reach fairly quickly, maybe even in a single day depending on what you're trying to achieve that day. Then there the goals that are going to be more lengthy. These are the goals that could take weeks, months, and even years to accomplish. Now your quicker goals usually aren't as easy to quit on due to the fact that they often don't take long to reach. On the other hand, the more longer goals are much different because of the extended time they often take to reach. These more lengthy types of goals are the ones that will require you to maintain a steady stride if you want reach them.

For this section of the topic on maintaining a steady stride towards your goals, I'm going to use an example of the sprinter vs. the steady stride mindset when it comes to setting goals from my perspective. When you think of Olympic runners for example, they are often categorized as being sprinters or long distance runners. We're all aware that your sprinters generally run the shorter distances, which means they have to get out of the blocks fast in order to win the race. The long distance runners have to be fast also, but they have to pace themselves more towards the finishing their particular race. If they do not properly pace themselves during the long distance they have to run, they will gas out and probably end up not finish the race. The way that these two examples coincide with the idea of accomplishing goals is that just as goals are defined differently for us all, the approach that we have towards them is a key component to how we complete them. Now you would think that if you have a goal that you'd like to accomplish that could be considered to be long term in categorization of goals, wouldn't it benefit you more if you had the steady stride mindset?

So all of this brings us to the entire point of this topic, which is the importance of maintaining a steady stride towards your goals. I mentioned earlier how a goal that could be classified as one that could be achieved quickly would likely mean that the chances of quitting on it would be slimmer right? From my perspective on this topic, the primary reason I feel we have to maintain a steady stride towards our goals is because the longer the mission takes, the more your will and desire to finish it will be tested. What I'm about to say likely goes without saying, but I believe that if you want to increase the chances of completing a goal that you've set for yourself, you have to be able to stay consistent towards reaching it. When something seems impossible, or becomes insurmountable, the likelihood of quitting increases in my opinion. I once heard the great boxer Mike Tyson say that; "It all comes down to dedication and consistency." You have to be able to have the mindset of viewing goal setting as more of the steady stride mindset that I referred to in the running example. It's all about the long game, and you have to be able to not allow yourself to get too high or too low when it comes to anything that you're trying to achieve. As with pretty much anything in life, a balanced approach is required in order to maintain a proper handle on things. So for all of you that are goal setting to kick off this new year, define what your goals are first and foremost. Secondly, gauge the amount of time you think it will take to reach them. Finally, pace yourself towards those goals, and maintain a steady stride along the path. I believe that if we do these things and not cut any corners along the way, we will have no problem reaching our goals.

Well that's how we're going to kick off the year 2020 here on 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I hope that this was a topic that was helpful to some of you there. I also hope that there was some meaning and understanding that could be taken away from it. Like always, I thank you all that stopped by and read. If you have anything that you'd like to ask or contribute to this topic or any of the previous topics that I've covered, please feel free to leave a comment. If you're on Twitter and would like to connect with me, you can reach me @BradrickH. Well Happy New Year to you all once again. Lets make 2020 one of the greatest and best years of our lives. Take care everyone, and have a great week ahead. See you all on the next one!

©2020 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Mind Management.

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There has been a common theme that I've used via this platform over the years, and that theme would be our mind and how we as people use it. Though I've talked about the mind for years now, as I've looked back at some of the topics I've covered throughout this year, I've come to realize that I've discussed topics that correlate to our minds quite a bit. I can't say definitively that this was done intentionally. I suppose that since I had to think out the topics that I've written about this year, the idea of addressing the mind regularly was done intentionally. Whether it was done intentionally is neither here nor there, but what truly matters to me is that I do what I can to help us open up our minds. Now the word health is a term that can have many different associations that come with it. Often times when we hear people talk about the general aspect of the term "health", it is normally associated with the physical aspect of life. Most of us that think of health initially equate it to looking and feeling physically healthy. Physical health is most definitely an important area of our lives that much be given attention to. However, the mental aspect of health is one that I think many of us tend to forget about. Now most of you know by now that I'm a big sports fan, and there has been a term that has been used to describe the act of resting an athlete to minimize the risk of injury to that athlete. The term has been more frequently used in the NBA, but it appears that it's gaining relevance in other athletic arenas as well. The term that I'm referring to is "load management". Since I'm one that believes both life and sports are similar when it comes to competition, and I also speak on the mind quite a bit, I figure I'd come with my own term to minimizing damage to our minds. I'm talking about mind management.

Hello once again good people! This is Brad H. reporting once again, and I'd like to once again welcome you all to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I am here once again to give my perspective on a topic that I feel would help keep us all motivated. Big ups once again to those of you that are joining me once again. Well the end of the year is closely approaching with Christmas just around the corner. This means that this will be the final topic that I address for the year 2019. I've mentioned this before, but I like to reflect a lot on the year when December rolls around. I tend to do a general evaluation on the year as a way to bring to light the highlights of the year, as well as things that I can improve on. Overall the year 2019 has been sort of meh. There were definitely some high points this year that make this year good. One of them was getting to see the Houston Astros play live for the first time. I also had a terrific birthday this year that built off the great birthday I had in 2018. There have also been some lows this year that made this year a difficult one. An example of one of those low was one of my good friend's father passing away unexpectedly. There were some other low moments that I could bring up, but there is no need for me to get all into that since this platform is one that I aim to keep positive. But before I get into this week's topic, I just want to again say thank you to everyone that has read or gave insight on anything that I've talked about on here. It truly means the world to me to know that my thoughts have been beneficial to other people in some capacity. I appreciate all of you, and I hope that the upcoming Christmas holiday brings you all the best. Now that I've reflected via my soapbox for a bit, lets go ahead and talk about the importance of mind management.

I'm sure that a good portion of you are thinking to yourselves; what in the heck is mind management, and why would Brad H. come up with a term like this? As I stated earlier, mind management is just a play on the sports term load management that I'm using to make the my I'm aiming to make. So we've established already what load management means when it comes to professional sports. From my perspective, the same logic applies when it comes the management of our minds. By now most of us know that anything that you care for in this life needs nurture and attention to have proper maintenance. When you think of a professional athlete that engages in a sport for a particular team, that player is an investment for whichever organization he plays for. Keeping that player active and healthy as possible is one of the sole missions the organization is tasked with. Now load management in general is something that has quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. A lot of fans dislike it because it keeps what are deemed healthy players from playing in games that the fans pay money for. All of that is besides the point, but the fact of the matter is that we as people have to treat our minds as if it's one of our valued assets. You have to be willing to view yourself as an organization, and your mind is your star player or head coach that you can't afford to lose. This ultimately means that you have to find ways to manage your mind in ways that are healthy for you.

Now that I've setup what my own perspective of what I believe mind management is, I want to get into why I believe that our minds need to be managed. I'm certain by now that I probably sound like a broken record talking about the excess amount of information that we take in on a daily basis these days. I've gone way more in depth on this in previous topics, so obviously there is no point in covering that aspect once again. For this particular topic, I want to come from more of a perspective of how it is inevitable that we're going to have moments when our minds are going to be overloaded at times. Beyond just taking in unhealthy amounts of information via our minds daily, we often overwork and overuse our minds by thinking too much. Worrying excessively is another unhealthy trait that consumes our minds on a regular basis if we're not careful. When we think of such habits like worrying and overthinking, many of us come from a perspective of just not doing them. While I do feel that these are bad habits, they are also habits that are near impossible to cut out completely. There isn't a single one of us that can say we never worry or stress out at times. We're human beings, not robots. This means that there is always going to be some degree of things that we put into our minds that we probably shouldn't. It all boils down to managing both the good and bad things in which we put into our minds, which ultimately brings me to the theme of this topic.

So why do I feel that it is of importance for us to practice mind management? We've already talked about the load management comparison and how load management helps prevent athletes from being injured due to being overused. Well from my personal perspective, the idea of overuse applies to our mind also. I believe that the mind can always be burnt out if it is overused, moreover, not managing our minds properly causes us to put too much emphasis on one particular thing. I believe that from my own personal perspective that it is never good to be thinking too much about one thing. My main reasoning for this is because I believe that focusing too much on one thing causes us to neglect other things that are important in our lives. I'm sure that many of you can relate to what I'm about to say, but there have been a countless amount of times when I've forgotten something because I was thinking too much about something in particular. We're all guilty of doing this, and it is quite a normal thing for us to do. Though I may be understanding of the normality of this habit, it doesn't excuse the fact that it's something that we can work towards bettering. Also, I want to mention that it is perfectly okay for us to rest our minds at time. We don't have to always be doing or thinking about something. I know that the society we live in kinda forces us to always be actively thinking about something, but that doesn't mean that we always have to engage in it. Ease your mind sometimes if you're able to. The key thing that I want to end this on is that it's all about balance and moderation. Manage your minds people, and you'll gain a level of peace that you probably never imagined you could have.

That pretty much sums up the topic of the week on the importance of mind management. I hope that it was both inspirational and enjoyable for you all to read. It is time for me to depart for now, so I'd like to once again thank you all for tuning into another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! As always, if any of you have anything you'd like to contribute to this topic, please feel free to do so in the comment section. You can also connect with me on Twitter if you'd like. I can be reached @BradrickH on there. I'd like to once again thank you all for another year, especially the people that regularly tune in. Enjoy Christmas, and I hope you all have a great rest of 2019. I'll see you all in 2020! God bless you all, and peace out!

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Playing To Your Strengths.

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It's been proven throughout time that we as people are constantly seeking to improve upon the things we already have. It's almost mind boggling when you think of how there was once a time where house phones were the only way for people to talk on the phone. Now house phones are pretty much a rarity, and mobile communication is the norm. I bring the point of seeking improvement up because like the upgrades to technology example that I used, we as people in general are often looking to upgrade ourselves. What do I mean by this? Many of us are seeking to make our lives better in various aspects in order for us to live better lives. I'm pretty certain that most of you would agree with this, and I am right there with you in agreeing on this. Now in order for us to expand upon and improve our lives, we have to first acknowledge what areas that we need to improve. These things could be classified as weaknesses right? Strength and weaknesses are characteristics that we all posses. Regardless of how strong or weak you may in certain areas, or how they level out when it comes to the number of each that we posses, the fact remains that there is nobody that is all one or the other. When it comes to our weaknesses, I believe that they are attributes that we should definitely work on improving. However, there are many of us that don't fully use and capitalize on our strengths to the best of our capacity. This is a huge problem from my perspective, and I think it is of great importance for us to play to our strengths in today's society.

YO! What's up once again everybody? This is Brad H. once again, and I'd like to welcome you all to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! For all the first time readers, this is platform where I give my perspective on a topic that will hopefully serve as inspiration in our lives. Glad to have you all here once again. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving, and that you are enjoying the month of December thus far. Man this year has gone by so fast right? So hard to believe that in less than a month that 2020 will be here. So for my soapbox this week, I'm going to address my Dallas Cowboys. So we saw them lose the Thanksgiving Day game to the Buffalo Bills, and this past Thursday we say them drop another to the Chicago Bears. Despite all of that, they are still in first place in the NFC East. Crazy right? Shows how weak that division is, but the biggest topic the last few weeks has been whether their owner Jerry Jones should fire head coach Jason Garrett. Now I personally think back to the year when Jerry fired then head coach Wade Phillips. That was in 2009 or 2010 I believe. Before Phillips was fired, the Cowboys were playing like absolute trash. They looked like a team that had given up on their coach, and it showed because when Phillips was fired and Garrett was promoted, the team started playing better. I bring this up because I see some semblance of that happening now. It looks to me like this team doesn't believe in Garrett anymore. Now I could be wrong, but when I see a team not executing like the Cowboys haven't been doing, I believe that it's a coaching issue. We will see how this all plays out, but I do believe that this will be Garrett's last year at the helm. Wit the lack of success the Cowboys have had in the last couple decades, I would say it's long overdue at this point. Alright, now that I've rambled about my team for a bit, lets talk more about the importance of playing to your strengths.

When it comes to us as individuals having both strength and weaknesses, I believe that it is important to put thing into the right context. This is one of the main reasons why I wanted to bring this topic to fruition, but the other goal with this is to hopefully inspire others to recognize their gifts. Now I mentioned earlier that our weaknesses should never totally be neglected. This especially applies when we're weak at something that has bearing on our lives. For example, if you're weak a speaking publicly and you have to take a public speaking course in college, working on improving that is crucial to how the end result will be for you in that class. Then there are other weaknesses that may not be as relevant to our lives. An example of this could be a person that is weak when it comes to a particular sport. Unless you're someone that plans on making a career out of whatever sport you're bad at, the idea of not being as strong in this area of your life probably won't matter much. Again, I'm of the belief it is better to put more emphasis towards improving in the areas of your life where it affects your livelihood. Our weaknesses definitely should matter in our lives, but as I pointed out earlier in this topic, there are many of us that do not fully maximize our strengths in this life. I believe that many of us don't even fully recognize most of our strengths, but for those of us that may do, we often allow them to take the backseat to the aspects of our lives where were we're weaker.

Now before I go into why I think it is important for us to play to our strengths, I want to try and setup where I am going with this topic. So what do I mean when I say that many of us do not fully maximize our strengths? This is a question that is subjective to whatever context that it is put into. My personal belief of this is that many of us do not fully apply the things that we're good at for the sake of bettering ourselves. Many of us have gifts and talents that we do not fully capitalize on, and because we don't, we find that it is more difficult for us to progress. Now as I alluded to earlier, much of this isn't our fault due to the fact that a lot of us don't fully know or understand our strengths. In order to know what your strengths are in this life, you have to be a self aware individual. That is beside the point, but the fact remains that suppression of our minds, along with focusing on irrelevant things often keep us stagnated. Since we're in the heart of the NFL season, I'm going to use a football example. When you think of a team like the Baltimore Ravens who have a scrambling quarterback in Lamar Jackson, along with a very good running back in Mark Ingram, wouldn't it make the most sense for them to use their running attack to progress their offense? If you watch football, you know that is what their team does, and they have been successful at it so far. When it comes to us as people, we have to identify our strengths and use them to our benefit.

All of this brings us to the main theme of this topic, which is the importance of playing to your strengths. Why do I personally believe it's important for us to play to our strengths? Besides the obvious idea of playing to your strengths gives you a better chance to succeed at whatever you're strong at, focusing too much on your weaknesses can lead to frustration and depression. From my own personal perspective, I believe that when we don't put precedence in our strengths in life, it leaves us too much energy to focus on the things we're not as good at. I'm sure that most of you at some point in your life tried doing something that you had a hard time figuring out, and to be quite honest, you probably become frustrated if you weren't able to do so. Maybe you later figured it out and become good at it, but there are times when that isn't always the case. There are just some things in our lives that you're never going to be good at, and that's okay. You don't have to drive yourself nuts trying to figure out something that isn't meant for you to learn. You have to focus more on the areas of your life that you do excel at. Those are the areas that will lead you towards having a better and more productive life. If something works for you and you're good at doing it, keep on pushing that instead of worrying about the things you're weaker at. We all have strengths in our lives, and those individual strengths are tailored just for us. Exploit those, and don't necessarily neglect your weaknesses, but put less focus into them if they're not benefiting you.

Well we've reached the conclusion of this week's topic, so I'm going to go ahead and sign off for now. Thank you all once again for stopping in for another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I'm am truly grateful for everyone that has read, commented, and tweeted anything that I've ever written. If you feel the desire to do any of those things with this topic, please feel free to do so. You can also follow me on Twitter @BradrickH if you'd like. Christmas is right around the corner, and I hope that everyone is in the Christmas spirit. If you happen not to be in the spirit, put on some good Christmas music and see if that helps. Matter of fact, listen to one of my favorites called "This Christmas" by Donnie Hathaway. That is a beautiful Christmas song, but I'm sure most of you have heard it before. Alright, I'm out of here, so I'll see you all in the next topic. Have a good week ahead, and peace!

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Attempting To Be Happy.

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I think that the good majority of us can agree that we all would like to experience as much happiness as we possibly can while we're alive. Of course we do have exceptions to that belief with the people that are miserable, and seem to enjoy having it that way. For the people that have unhappiness in their nature, that's their prerogative I suppose. My only quarrel with people like this is that they are often the ones that attempt to steal the joy of others because their unhappy. That's a topic for another day, but I definitely believe that most of us want peace and happiness in our lives for the most part. Happiness is one of those things that is truly a mindset. It is essentially a state of being that varies from person to person. However, I am a firm believer that it is something that rests solely on our shoulders. It is our responsibility to define what happiness means to us personally, and then take the necessary steps to reach that state of bliss. Something that I've noticed in regards to happiness and how the world we live in deems it is the idea that being unhappy comes from having a lack of items. There are many people out there in this world that truly believe that the only way to be happy is to acquire a lot of material things. In essence, this is what I would call social engineering, and it's a trap that many of us fall. In my opinion, this type of agenda causes us to stay in a state of unhappiness, even when we may have much to be happy for. Because of this type of engineering, I believe that many of us give up on the idea of finding and experiencing happiness. This is why I feel that it is of importance for us to attempt to find happiness.

Hello once again good people! This is Brad H. coming at you all once again, and you are now tuned into another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! For those that may be first time viewers, this is a platform I use to express my thoughts on a topic that I come up with as a point of interest. I try and use that topic to provide some inspiration that can hopefully serve us all in our lives. How are you all doing this time around? Good I hope. This section of the topic for the week is the soapbox section where I bring up something that is unrelated to the main topic at hand. So this upcoming week will mark the Thanksgiving holiday for many across the world. This is something that I try and bring up every year on my topics, because I think it is something that gets overlooked a lot during the holidays. I want to remind everyone to be mindful of those that are grieving during this time of the year. Yes I do know that the holidays are special for many of us, but the holidays also makes people think about their loved ones that are no longer here. I've talked about it before on here, but I lost a dear family member of mines six years ago during the week of Thanksgiving. Because of that unfortunate event, I tend to look at Thanksgiving a bit differently than I once did. I'm sure many of you can relate to this. I'll close by encouraging you all to call and check up on someone you know that may have lost someone around this time period in the past. Make sure they are holding up okay, and for those you that are personally affected by this, remember that the spirits of our loved ones live on through us. That's all for my soapbox, so lets go ahead and talk about the importance of attempting to be happy.

Now I talked earlier about how I feel that we as people have been socially engineered by the world we live in when it comes to happiness. My reasoning for bringing this up is because I believe that we can all agree that there are so many of us that just aren't happy in life. I know that sounds depressing and self deprecating, but it is a reality for so many of us. Now there are likely some instances where it is genuinely both reasonable and understandable for a person to not be happy. I will also admit that there are different levels when it comes to being happy, so happiness cannot be viewed as something in a vacuum. However, how many of us complain about not being happy despite having some semblance of things that we should be happy for? Most of us have so much to be happy for; heck even just being among the living is something worth being happy for. Unfortunately due to the societal norms that have placed upon us, many of us are unable to see past the fact that many of us do have reasons to have some level of happiness. We spend too much of our mental space focusing our time and energy towards all the reasons we shouldn't be happy, rather than focusing more on the things that we already have. Again, this isn't entirely our fault because I think it has become habitual for us to view life in this way. Most of have been conditioned to view the glass as being half empty over half full, and if we practice bad habits on a everyday basis, those habits become ingrained in our psyche to the point where it's hard to break free of these habits.

Now I brought up earlier the habits and conditioning by society to set up the next point that I want to make for this topic. Hopefully what I'm about to say doesn't come across as too harsh, but the reality for most of us that experience chronic unhappiness in our live is that we are choosing not to be happy. Yes, I am one of those people that indeed do feel that happiness is a choice, and I'm going to expand on that point by saying this. There are many of us aren't even trying to find happiness in our lives. Now some people may read that and say; "Brad H., what do you mean I'm not trying to be happy?" My response to that question would be this; how can you be attempting to find happiness if you're still under the programming that conditions when it comes to happiness? If you've yet to truly break free of the standard of happiness that society has set upon us, how can you truly attempt to have happiness. See, most of us feel like the only way for us to be happy is if we have all these various material items, etc. Too many of us believe that by chasing after these things is the only way for us to attempt to be happy. I personally believe from my perspective that attempting to find happiness means changing our mindset. The thing with happiness is that it always comes in waves. Even people that are generally happy in their lives will go through patches where they experience a lack of happiness. Again, it comes in waves, but changing our mindset is the only way that we can attempt to achieve happiness.

So ultimately, why do I feel is it of importance for us to attempt to be happy? Besides the obvious benefits that come along with being happy in this life, the idea of breaking our minds free of the societal shackles is the main reason from my own perspective. In my opinion, these shackles that I'm referencing in this topic are the reason for many of us to not even trying have happiness. This is why I believe so many of us would rather complain about how messed up our lives are rather than trying to see a better outlook on our lives. As I brought up earlier on this installment, many of us have a lot of things in this life to be happy for. Unfortunately, we often fail to recognize these things because of what we've been deceived into believing what happiness is by the world we live. The bottom line is that if you're someone that experiences long term periods of being unhappy with life, your life and your mind likely will not change until you attempt to do something about it. I believe the best way for us to do this is to start looking at the little things in our lives that most of us take for granted. If you have people in your life that truly love and care for you, that is definitely something to be happy for. If you woke up today and you're breathing, that is something to be extremely happy for. There are many other reasons as to why we should express happiness, but it ultimately comes down to us as individuals. What I do know for sure is that we'll never be happy if we don't try to be, so lets try and change our thoughts to manifest happiness into our lives. There is always hope, but we have to be willing to try.

That about sums up this topic. I've pretty much said all that I think needs to have been said, so I'm going to go ahead and sign off. Thank you all once again to those of you that have read this far. I really appreciate every single person that does. I hope that this topic served as some inspiration for some of you out there. If you have any comments or feedback to give, please feel free to do so. You can also connect with me on Twitter @BradrickH if you like. For those that celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your family and the week ahead. This has been another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' brought to you by Brad H. Take care everyone, and I'll see you all in the month of December.

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

The Importance Of Keeping Your Mind Simple.

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I know that I probably sound like a broken record when I bring up the topic of being cautious of the things we take in. This is something that I've talked about very many times on here, and I highly doubt that there will ever come a time where I no longer have a need not to. For those of you that may not know what I mean by being cautious of what we take in, I'm referring to all the information that comes at us on a daily basis. Things such as the news, social media, etc, are examples of what I mean by this. We live in an era where information is always readily available to the point where I feel as if our brains have a hard time taking it all in due to the constant release of it. One of the terms that people in the fitness industry use is "overtraining". Overtraining is described as "a point where a person may have a decrease in performance and plateauing as a result of failure to consistently perform at a certain level or training load; a load which exceeds their recovery capacity." I bring up the term overtraining because I feel that it pretty describes what many of us do to our minds when it comes to taking in information. Now I'm not going to get on here and say that we should never take in any kind of information. I mean if you're reading this, you are more than likely not someone that doesn't use the internet or social media in general. Living in a society where the internet and social media is the norm makes it extremely difficult to avoid. However, just with the overtraining term that I brought up, many of us willingly consume too much information that is quite frankly unnecessary to our lives. I believe there is where the problem lies, and brings me to this week's topic on why I believe it is of importance to keep your mind simple.

What's going on everybody in the land of the internet? This is Brad H. back once again, and you are not tuned into another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! This is the blog where I give my perspective on a topic that I think could be helpful for us all. Glad to have you all joining me once again for a week of introspection. As usual before we get down to this week's topic breakdown, I'm going to get on my soapbox and talk briefly about something that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Boy, talk about a downward spiral huh? I know that sounds a bit weird being that you all have no idea what I'm talking about. I am talking about the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. After being such a juggernaut for the past several years, they look like a team that won't even be able to sniff the playoffs. Now I know losing Kevin Durant and not having Klay Thompson for this season were big blows to their squad. Now Stephen Curry is down, and Draymond Green is also dealing with injuries. The thing that shocked me just a bit was how bad they were looking even before Curry and Green went down. I knew they weren't going to be what they have been, but I figured they would at least be able to get into the playoffs with Curry still there. I know they have a lot of young players, and their team has pretty much done a total overhaul. But with that being said, it's kinda hard to feel bad for them being that they had such a good run of being at the top. It's still early in the season, so we'll have to see how things unfold. I just know that I'm happy that basketball is back. Now that I've gotten on my soapbox, lets go ahead and get into this week's topic of keeping your mind simple.

Before we get into the heart of the topic on the importance of keeping your mind simple, I thought it would be beneficial to establish that there is a clear cut difference when it comes to the mind and the idea of keeping it simple. I know many of you are aware of this already, however, I figured I would point this out before going further with my main points for this topic. Now for most people that would maybe hear a statement that could describe someone as being a simple minded individual, there will likely be a negative association that goes along with this statement. I will admit that I happen to be one that would agree with anyone that views a simple minded person as something negative. Now in saying that, I'm not attempting to belittle or bash people that could be viewed as being simple minded. The truth is that we all are simple minded at various periods of our lives, and most people that are seen as simple minded often times just don't know any better. Negativity is definitely associated with the idea of being simple minded, but of course that isn't what we're talking about with this week's topic. From my perspective, there is a big difference between being simple minded, and keeping your mind simple. I wanted to address this because I want to make sure that no one confuses this topic as one that encourage us to dumb ourselves down. Now that we've established the difference between being simple minded and keeping your mind simple, what exactly does keeping your mind simple entail exactly?

When I think of a person that aims to keep their mind simple, I pretty much liken it to someone that is a minimalist. People that are viewed as minimalists often keep their lives simple from a standpoint of not having a ton of clutter in their lives. These are people that basically only keep the necessities in their lives because they realize that having too much of anything in your life can weigh you down. I believe that this same logic applies when it comes to our minds from my own personal perspective. We as people have a tendency to bog down and fill our lives, and our minds up with meaningless things that add up to being toxic clutter for our minds. I brought up earlier in this post how we already have so much information that we're taking in daily. Some of what we take in can't be helped, and depending on what it is we're taking in, it can be valuable for us. On the flip side of the coin, there are also things that we needlessly consume in our minds. When I think of this, bad habits such as gossiping and being overly concerned with the affairs of others are examples of this. From my perspective, when you engage in these types of habits, you are essentially corrupting your mind. Doing things like gossiping about others are poison to our spirits in my opinion, and we know that our mind and spirit go hand in hand with one another. Doing things like this excessively not only adds unnecessary clutter to your mind, but it also keeps your mind running consistently. This ultimately brings me to the point of why I feel it is of importance to keep our minds simple.

So we've talked about having too much clutter in your life and how it potentially leads to toxic habits. Well from my perspective, when we unnecessarily bring things that could be deemed as clutter into our minds, we tend to develop the habit of overthinking. It brings us to a point where we potentially make things in our lives more complicated than they need to be. This also includes our relationships with other people as well. A common theme that I've brought up in this subject is the word "over". Just like when I brought up the overtraining example earlier in the topic, overthinking is just as damaging from my perspective. This is why I believe it is importance for us as people to keep our minds simple. Getting to a point where our minds operate in a healthy way is the ideal here. I believe it is difficult to do this when our minds are filled up with so much clutter. It makes it hard for us to think and process things, and that makes our lives even more complicated. Am I saying that we shouldn't be on a path towards knowledge and information? Absolutely not. What I'm saying is that we have to learn to let go of habits that can be corrupting to our minds. I do realize that breaking bad habits isn't easy, and this is something that I've brought up on here before. But I am also a believer that the same way you develop a habit, you can also train yourself to unbreak it. At the end of it all, I just believe in adopting a minimalist approach in all areas of our lives. It's time for us to examine ourselves, and start ridding our minds and our lives of clutter. Make the decision to keep your mind simple today.

That pretty much sums up what I wanted to discuss when it comes to the importance of keeping your mind simple. I hope that you all enjoyed it, and most importantly I hope that it was of some benefit to some of you. If any of you have anything that you'd like to contribute to this topic, please feel free to do so in the comment section. You can also follow me on Twitter @BradrickH if you'd like. November is here folks, so the year is quickly coming to an end. However, just because this year is about to go out doesn't mean that we can't make the next couple of months great! This has been another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' brought to you by Brad H. I hope you all have a great weekend, and an even greater week ahead. Take care everyone, and I'll see you all on the next topic. Peace!

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

How Staying On Your Purpose Can Be A Remedy For Bad Habits.

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Habits, habits, habits! You have them, I have them, we all have them. I feel like habits are a topic of interest that I have talked about on here plenty of times in the past. That is definitely the case due the fact that I'm a person that feels that habits can be a deterrence towards productivity. In saying that, I'm not saying that habits are all bad. There are a lot of good habits that a person can have, and that's a terrific thing. However, I think that most of us can agree that our bad habits are more of a problem in our lives than our good habits. It is for that reason why I feel that more credence has to be given to our bad habits. The idea is that ridding our lives of bad habits can help in creating more good habits. If you ask me, this is a win/win situation. Ridding ourselves of bad habits isn't always an easy thing to do. If we're being honest here, there are some bad habits that many of us have that we'll never truly be free of. Even if you have a habit that is deemed bad that you're having a hard time getting out of your life, you can always try and cut back on and limit it. From my perspective, progression should always come before perfection. Now depending on what kind of habits a person has, there are all kinds of reasons for these habits. I'm of the belief that the majority of bad habits stem from too much idle time in our lives. We've all heard the saying that goes; "An idle mind is the devil's playground." Whether you believe that to be true or not is on you, but one of the best ways I feel a person can begin the journey towards eliminating bad habits is getting on your purpose. From my perspective, finding and staying on your purpose is one of the best treatment options that we have for remedying bad habits.

What's going on once again people? Y'all know who it is! It's your boy Brad H. back once again, and welcome to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I am back to bring another topic that can hopefully serve as some inspiration for us all. I hope that all has been good and well for you all as of late. I know I'm one happy guy due to the fact that the NBA is back. If I'm correct about this, this is the only time of the year where the four major sports in America are happening. So we got the MLB World Series happening now between the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals. For those of you that may not know, I am definitely an Astros fan, which means that I am pulling for them to win. I actually got to attend a game this season at Minute Maid park, which was a lot of fun also. The Astros are kinda in a hole as of the moment because they are down 2-1 in the series. However, if they are able to win tonight, we will have a series once again. I will admit that I was somewhat worried when they went down 0-2. I will also admit that I was a bit surprised at how great Washington has been in this series. I know they're a good team, but I figured all that time between their last series and this one would have them rusty. I still believe the Astros are the more dominant team, and I do believe that if they even this series up that they will go on to win it all. Two titles in a three year span would be a great accomplishment. Regardless of the outcome, I think most people that follow baseball can say this has been quite a good season. Baseball will be missed when it's over, but we are in the thick of NFL, and like I pointed out earlier NBA is here. I'm especially excited about NBA because there were so many moves made in the off season that has so many teams looking completely different. Should be an exciting season. Well that's my soapbox for the week, so lets go ahead and talk about how staying on your purpose can be a remedy for bad habits.

In order for us to correlate purpose with being a potential remedy for bad habits, we first have to establish exactly what is our purpose. As with pretty much anything that can be viewed in a variety of ways, purpose can mean different things for different people. From my own personal perspective, along with what I've heard others define in regards to their definition of what purpose is, I view purpose as something or someone that a person is intensely passionate about. I view it as one of the first things that you think of when you wake up, and the last thing you think about when you go to sleep. I see it as the primary reason why you want to wake up in the morning. The beautiful thing about purpose from my perspective is that it can be pretty much anything as long as it's something positive in your life. In essence, it is one of your life's meanings. Now another thing that I want to touch on is that your purpose doesn't have to be just limited to one thing. There are a multitude of things that can interest us, and while some may not agree with what I'm about to say, I say the more the better when it comes to having interests. Now why is finding, being, and staying on our purpose something that I wanted to address before getting into how it can be a cure for bad habits? Well from my perspective, many of us do not really put the energy that we could towards our purpose. It's one of those deals where you're either not doing it at all, or if you are doing it, you're probably just doing it in a recreational capacity. I'm not knocking doing something in a recreational manner, but just think about how well you can do something if you take it more seriously. This is where the shift in thought has to come into play when it comes to purpose.

Now that I've touched on how many of us do not properly utilize our purpose to our advantage, I want to talk about purpose and how it relates to time. If you're someone that is serious about staying on your purpose, you have to understand that it is going to take up a lot of your time. Think of it this way; lets say that a person have a passion for trading stock in the stock market. This person is going to have to probably go through some kind of formal training to learn how it works to make money in the stock market. Not only that, they will likely have to read books and watch videos on the subject. They will probably seek out people in that field that are experts as mentors, and their passion for stock will probably stay consistent. Anything that you are passionate about that has fluidity to it is something that will always require your time. Why is that? Because in order for you to stay atop the trends and changes that happen, you have to be knowledgeable about what is going on. Now we often hear about how important time is and how we shouldn't waste it right? Well for a person that is truly on their purpose, their time is going towards something that their passionate about. When you're passionate about something, you enjoy doing it don't you? It doesn't feel like a hassle or a chore does it? You find that you're so occupied and consumed by it that you often lose track of time. This is how people that are on their purpose feel.

Now we all know that the general definition of a remedy is a cure or solution to a problem right? I'm pretty certain by now, if not earlier, that all of you have caught on to why I believe that being on your purpose is a remedy for bad habits. I believe that an individual that is on their purpose utilizes their time and energy towards their purpose in a certain type of way. If done in a manner which serves them properly, this likely leaves little time for that person to engage in a ton of bad habits. This is why I believe that people that are truly on their purpose probably don't partake in a lot of bad habits. They probably don't have a lot of extra time for things that people who aren't on their purpose do. Now that isn't to say that people on their purpose can't or don't have bad habits. As I brought up earlier in the topic, we all have bad habits regardless of how we use our time. However, if you are a person that finds yourself being unmotivated in life, it would probably be helpful towards you to evaluate what you're giving your time to. If you have any habits that dominate your life to the point where you're potentially self-destructing, you probably should try and find something else better to do with your time. Also, you have to remember that this is a win/win scenario if you drop the bad habits for something more meaningful. Like I wrote about several weeks ago about good habits being a battle that you can only win, staying on your purpose is just the same. Lets work on finding our purpose in this life, and curing ourselves of our bad habit. Again, this is only a battle that you can win.

Well that is all that I have for you all this go around. I hope that those of you that read this found it enjoyable and helpful to your life. It is now time for me to sign off for another week, so thank you once again to those of you that tuned into another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! As always, if you have any comments or concerns, please leave them below in the comments. You can also link up with me on Twitter at the handle @BradrickH. Man this is the time of the year that I love. Cooler weather and sports all around equals a weekend of probably staying in. I hope that you all are having a great weekend thus far, and I wish you an even better week ahead. I'll see you all on the next go round. Take care everyone, and peace!

©2019 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.