Disappointments Happen, But Moving Forward Is A Must.

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There are many harsh realities that come along with living life that many of us would prefer not to think of. This is something that I've dedicated an entire topic towards in a past post on this blog. I think that is further evidence of the scope that comes along with life's harsh realities. There are many aspects to the various realities of life that we have to accept. One of those is the aspect of disappointment. Disappointments are something that we all will experience throughout life. It doesn't matter what age you are, or where you are at in your life's journey, disappointments are always lurking around the corner. Though we all may realize and understand that disappointments are going to happen to us, we may not always necessarily have the best way of handling them. Due to the idea that disappointments are often the result of a letdown that happens in our lives, the reality is that many of us look to all the wrong methods in order to cope with them. No one is perfect, and there is no judgement on my end as to how a person deals with letdowns in their life. However, one thing that I know for sure is that regardless of how a person chooses to deal with the setbacks in their life, life must always carry on regardless. 

Welcome back everyone! This is your boy Brad H. once again, and I would like to welcome you all to the final edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective' of 2020! I am here to hopefully provide some inspiration through a topic that I will be giving my perspective on. Well here we are folks! This year that I think we all can agree has been like no other is coming to an end real soon. Since this will be my last topic of this year, I figured that I would give some insight into why I wanted to address the importance of moving on from disappointments. We all have endured quite a lot this year with the whole Coronavirus pandemic that we're in. I've suffered some personal disappointments this year as well. Some of them I mentioned in topics throughout the year, while others I have kept to myself. I sure that all of you can attest to facing personal disappointments this year as well. It is for this reason that I figured this would be a good topic to close 2020 out on via this blog. I sincerely thank all of you once again that have been on this journey with me and reading my topics. I know the year has been tough, but lets try and end this year on as positive of a note as we can. Thank you all once again! Now lets do this for the final time in 2020!

Now the good majority of us by now know what it means to be disappointed. However, disappointment can come with many emotions depending on the individual that is feeling this way. Frustration and anger are two of the more well known emotions that go along with disappointment, but I would dare say that the biggest emotion that goes along with disappointment is the emotion of sadness. We can all recall instances of being a kid and asking our parents for something we wanted, only to hear that famous word, NO! When you didn't get your way back then, you probably cried or was sad for a little while. The emotions of disappointment tend to evolve as we get older. Think back to your teenage years when you wanted to go to a party or sleepover, and your parents told you no. You more than likely wouldn't cry behind this, but it would probably cause you to feel dejected about the response. During our adult years, we should be handling disappointments much better than we did in our youth days. However, this thought doesn't always apply to everyone. Even as adults, there are some of us that struggle with handling disappointment. 

One of the main things that I want to touch on when it comes to disappointments is the many forms that it comes in. There are countless amount of ways for a person to feel the emotion of disappointment, but I have narrowed this topic down to three main ways. We have outside circumstances, other people, and then ourselves. Now what do these three forms of disappointments mean, you may wonder? First off, we have circumstances that are outside of our control that may disappoint us. Secondly, we have other people that disappoint us. Finally, we tend to disappoint ourselves at times. Every single one of us will experience disappointments on all of these scopes at some point or another. When we think of the various forms that disappointment entails, it honestly isn't hard to conceive how disappointment is something we can experience frequently. Now we talked about how many of us do not necessarily handle disappointment in the best manner. Yes, we all will have setbacks in our lives that cause us to cry and wonder why we're having to experience these emotions. However, the worst thing that we can do is wallow during these times. We have to find a way to pick ourselves up and keep on moving forward.  

So how does one move forward from disappointments? From my own personal perspective, moving on from disappointments is something that all of us do naturally anyway. Just reference back to the examples that I gave earlier if you need proof of this. We've all had to move on from disappointments, and the fact that we're here now is evidence of this. However, what I would add to this is that we have to learn how to have more grace on ourselves. Many of us tend to be extremely hard on ourselves whenever we're disappointed. Learn how to accept that we're all human, which means we're allowed to deal with disappointments happening in life. More important than disappointments is learning to not allowing ourselves to become defeated by disappointments. Life is always moving regardless of what happens to us. This world won't ever stop spinning for one single person, so always being in a mindset of moving forward is a must. This is just some encouragement for all of us out there to keep progressing despite facing disappointments and setbacks. We have to keep on moving forward folks!

Well that about wraps up this final topic for the year 2020! I hope that you all found some meaning and understanding from this topic! If any of you have any comments or feedback that you would like to leave, please feel free to do so in the comment box. You can also connect with me on Twitter @BradrickH if you'd like. Again, I would like to thank you all for another year of reading 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I truly thank every single one of you that have supported me throughout this year. I hope you all have a wonder and Merry Christmas, and an even better start to 2021! See you all next year! Take care, and peace out!

©2020 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2016 Bradrick H. All Rights Reserved.

Suffering Setbacks In Life, and Using Them As Motivation For the Future.

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Perfection is a false reality that does not exist. Although the majority of people are aware that attaining perfection isn't a reality, a good portion of people still aim to achieve it. I feel there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to achieve the best outcome that you possibly can in various situations, or even striving to be the best person in this life that you can possibly be. However, I sometimes believe that many of us view the setbacks and disappointments that happen in our lives as total failures. Many of us set out upon a journey with reckless abandon to achieve a goal, and if we just so happen to not reach those goals, we sometimes view ourselves as failures. I recently had what I would consider a humbling experience that I would like to share in this week's edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'.

What's good people? It's ya boy Brad H. back at you again with another blog posting. Hope all is well and good with everyone. For this week's post, I'm going to share with you all an event that I was involved last week, and use it as an example of how it relates to the topic of this post. Last week was not only a physically painful week for me, it was also a stressful one as well. I feel like what I endured last week is a fairly good example of how having setbacks and disappointments does not always equate to being a failure. We just have to use those setbacks as a motivating force for future events that we will encounter. If any of you have been a regular reader of my blog posts, you've probably seen mention of an annual 5K race that I've run in for the past three years. I enjoy being active and having the experience of running in this race. However, the primary reason that I've done this race three straight times is because it normally takes place right before my birthday. Since I value the old saying that "health is wealth", I've always viewed participating in the race as a birthday gift to give myself.

Now besides enjoying the overall experience of participating in the Gusher/Kinsel Ford 5K, my initial goal when I registered was to beat my previous running times from the past two years. I had high hopes towards the end of 2013 when I decided that I would participate, as I was reaching a level of activity through running that I haven't experienced in a few years. I would dare say that I was somewhat at the level I was when I was a bit younger. However, unfortunately in late November of 2013, I went through another stage of inactivity after a close family member passed away. I basically went almost an entire month without doing any running, or any exercise for that matter. When I finally was mentally ready to start back training again, it felt like I was starting all over again. Just getting through one mile of jogging was a challenge within itself. Saying that getting back into the groove of things as you get a bit older is an understatement. However, after a month or so of training again, I began to make progress; but once again I had to take some time off due to knee problems and consistent bad weather.

Since I had it in my mind to do this race in 2013, I went ahead and registered for the race knowing that I hadn't been training properly. At any rate, I still held onto hope that there would be a slim chance that I would able to beat my race times from the previous years. Then six days before the event, everything came crashing down on me. The Sunday before the race, I lifted a dresser for a family member and hurt my back. Ouch! Instead of using the few days before the race to train, I pretty much had to rest because of the pain that I was experiencing. I thought about just pulling out of the race altogether, and I would have had to if it were only a day or two after the back injury. I just couldn't see myself running at all with a bad back. My back slowly got better during the week, but it was not 100 percent whatsoever. Not only was my back being a hinderance, my mental state wasn't where it needed be either. Despite the bleak outlook, I went ahead and participated in the race.

So you're probably wondering how did I do? Well, I ran my slowest time out of the three years I've done this race, but I did cross the finish line. Following the race, I felt extremely down on myself for not reaching the goal I wanted to obtain. It took me talking to and corresponding with other people to realize that I was being too hard on myself. People were telling me that I should be happy that I finished, and that I was only 3 minutes slower than my fastest time despite a bad back and little training. They were saying things like; "Imagine how well you would have done if you hadn't injured your back, and you did train properly for the race?" When I began to focus on the positive things that I was hearing, I realized that I indeed was being too hard on myself. A humbling experience, but it helped me to realize even more that having setbacks are all about how you handle them.

I'm going to go ahead and bring this week's post to a close, but the main point is that setbacks, failures, and disappointments are all a state of mind. When we have unfortunate situations and setbacks in our lives, it's totally up to us on how we choose to handle them. We can either wallow in them and allow them to take us out of the game completely, or we can use them as motivation for doing and being better in the future. I know this sounds like a simple concept, but sometimes it takes other people telling us that it's okay to fail sometimes. What matters most is as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. This message goes way beyond just running in a race; it's about all aspects of life, as there will always be disappointments and setbacks that will happen throughout life.

Well that's it for this week's edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'. As with all of my posts, everything that I've written applies to me and I how I strive to live. I hope that you enjoyed reading, and hopefully you can relate some of this post to the setbacks that we're all going to have in the future. I also want to apologize for being away and not writing last week, but now you all know why. Everything is fairly back to normal now, so I'll see you all in the next post. Till then, everyone stay up and keep on maintaining. Peace!