Setbacks Are A Part Of Life; It's Your Reaction To Them That Matters Most.

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There are many things in this life that are just impossible to avoid experiencing. I believe that one of those things is something that that we've both heard and experienced time and time again. What am I talking about you may wonder? I'm referring to setbacks, which is something that many of us experience more often than we'd probably like. Now what exactly is a setback? We all have our own interpretation of what a personal setback may be, but my personal definition of a setback is when something that may be important to us doesn't go as planned. A setback can come in all shapes and forms, and as I alluded to previously, no one is immune to them taking place. While the occurrence of setbacks may be a constant aspect of life, the various ways in which we choose to react to them is always up in the air. Because we are all different individuals with different ways of processing things, we all have different ways of reacting to setbacks. Just like anything else in life, there can be both positive and negatives that can be taken away from having setbacks. However, I believe it is safe to say that most people focus primarily on the negative aspect of setbacks. Regardless of what the setback may be, we find ourselves questioning ourselves and wondering; why is this happening to me? It's perfect normal to question why something may have happened to cause a setback, however, getting too caught up in the setback itself is counterproductive. We have to learn and understand that no matter who you are or what you've done, setbacks are just a part of life. What matters most is how we choose to react to them.

Hello once again ladies and gentlemen. It is I Brad H. back at it once again to present the end of 2016 edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'. The blog itself isn't coming to an end, however, this will likely be the last entry of 2016. As always, I hope all has been good and well with everyone. For anyone that may be first time visitors and not familiar with how things go here, I normally come on here every other week to give my personal perspective on various thoughts and ideas that play a part in my life on a regular basis. I try to take those ideas and put them into words that can hopefully serve as an inspiration to others, as well as motivation for myself. Since we're near the end of the year, I wanna take a few moments and reflect. For me personally, it has been quite a journey with handling this blog series this year. In fact, I believe this is the first year that I've actually stayed consistent with updating regularly throughout an entire calendar year. That was one of the goals that I set headed into 2016, and I'm very glad to have accomplished it. I can only hope that through the process of staying consistent that I was able to reach and hopefully inspire others while being on this quest. Since 2016 isn't officially over yet, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself and say how good or bad this year has been to me. I'll just say that just like everyone else, I've experienced my share of highs and lows, but I'm also aware that anything whether for good or bad can still happen before the year ends. Since Christmas day is only a couple of days away, lets try to focus on enjoying that day itself, as well as the rest of 2016. Again, I thank everyone that has taken out the time to read any of these posts. Now that I've had the chance share a couple of reflections, lets go ahead and talk about this week's topic of setbacks and the importance of our reactions to them.

Before talking more about this week's topic, I always let others know that a person's individual viewpoints will always vary from person to person. The goal with this isn't to focus too much on what is considered right or wrong, but rather to encourage more in depth thinking on various subject matters. If anyone disagrees with or has a perspective different from myself on this or any other topics, that is all fine and well. I welcome all thoughts, and the promotion of learning from one another is something that I'm a firm believer in. Now, for a little insight on how I arrived at ending this year's blog series on this topic. I personally thought it would be both beneficial and therapeutic to write on this topic due to a recent setback that I've had personally. Not going too much into details, but I recently had a setback that has kinda thrown me for a loop a bit. Something that I was really hoping to work out recently just happened not to. Of course I'm disappointed about it, and I'm not going to front as if I'm above reacting negatively to setbacks. My hope this week is that I can show others that while setbacks aren't always an ideal part of our lives, we always have a choice on how we react to them. More importantly, I'm hoping that me writing this will serve as a form of inspiration to myself. Maybe it can help be the extra jolt that inspires to me pick myself back up from this setback that has knocked me down a bit. I'm trying to keep in mind that famous quote that goes; "If you fall down, you can look up, and if you can look up you can get up."

Now as I stated previously, the majority of people view setbacks happening in a negative way. Having negative thoughts towards a setback is totally understandable, and I would even say that depending on how severe of a setback that has occurred in your life may be, a negative outlook is sometimes warranted. I'm in no way saying that everyone handles a setback in this way. As I've stated in previous posts, we all handle and process things differently. Now while it may be both normal and natural to feel down or depressed following a setback happening, many of us allow those negative feelings to marinate within our minds. We often don't move forward fast enough from the setback, and that's when the negative state of mind can creep in and take over full force. Once that happens, it becomes even more difficult to get our lives back on course, and it becomes a vicious cycle of daily bouts of self-pity and doubt. Like I mentioned, we all handle and process things differently, which also means that the time frame of rebounding from a setback varies within us individually. However, the healing process takes a lot longer if we constantly allow a negative mindset to fester within following a setback. The biggest trait of a setback is that we often cannot control them, nor can we stop them from happening. They are guaranteed to happen in life, and they often hurt us deeply whenever they occur. While we often can't change nor stop them, we do have control of how we react to them.

People that are frequent visitors here are likely aware of that fact that I often talk about the power of the mind, as well as the importance of working towards strengthening our minds. In regards to getting through a topic such as this one, as well as many others, the mind is a key factor in determining if and when we bounce back from setbacks. It is easy to sit around and wallow in self-pity whenever a setback occurs. We are aware that participating in those self-defeating habits is equivalent to taking the easy way out. The hard part for us is developing the ability to be able to take positives from a setback, and then being able to learn and grow from them. Although this is can be a hard task to take, it's the one option out of the two that gives us the opportunity to grow as individuals. Embracing the agony and disappointment that comes with having setbacks isn't something that is easy to do, and I feel that it takes a certain amount of fortitude to do this. I know that I myself am working on trying to implement this tactic in my life. Again, much of this hinges on how big of a setback that a person is experiencing. I want to be sure and stress that the degree of impact that a setback can have varies, and if we're being honest with ourselves, there are some setbacks that may not be recoverable. Even if that is the case, we still have control over how we react.

Well I'm going to go ahead and bring this entry to a close. I guess I'll end by saying that we shouldn't focus too much on setbacks happening. Why? Because they are inevitable, as well as a part of life. We may have control in certain circumstances, but we can never control unexpected events happening. Instead of worrying so much about the setbacks, lets try focusing on how we react to them. Getting caught up in the self-pity and wallowing in our issues doesn't help the situation, nor does it add to our ability to fix whatever the situation may be. I want to state again that I definitely don't have it all together when it comes to this topic, and I'm still dealing with some backlash from the recent setback that I referenced to previously in this post. But like I said, this blog is all about me trying to inspire myself along with others. That said, me getting these thoughts out there helps me to learn myself. I can't speak for anyone else, but I will say that for me personally, you'll be surprised at how much you learn about yourself when you put effort into something you're passionate about. Well we're at the end now, so I'll leave you all with a quote that coincides with this week's topic. This one comes courtesy of Dau Voire: "A minor setback is an exquisite setup for a major comeback, remember that."

Well that's all for this edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' for 2016 folks! We made it guys! I hope you all enjoyed this blog entry, and I hope that some meaning and understanding was able to be gained from it. Before ending this, I want to say congratulations again to my younger sister for receiving her bachelor's degree last week. I mentioned her then upcoming graduation ceremony in the previous post, so I wanted to bring it to light once again. The commencement ceremony was truly great, and I'm so proud of you sis. Keep up the great work! Christmas is right around the corner, so Merry Christmas to everyone out there. Enjoy the day with your family, and take some time to reflect on and remember those that are no longer with us this holiday season. Alright, I'll see you all in a couple of weeks in the year 2017. Until then, I wish you all a happy holidays, and I'm sending light, love, peace and positive thoughts to all.

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