Friday, December 20, 2019

The Importance Of Mind Management.

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.

Saturday, December 7, 2019

The Importance Of Playing To Your Strengths.

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.