Play to Your Strengths - How My Messed Up Brain Wiring Became a Benefit

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Play to Your Strengths - How My Messed Up Brain Wiring Became a Benefit

After quite a bit of extensive testing, I finally received a diagnosis from my neuropsych doctors of what's wrong with my thinking: "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder due to Traumatic Brain Injury"

That's a fancy way of saying ever since I fell down the stairs and "humpty dumpty"-ed my brain, I sometimes have difficulty with my thinking. The interesting part - testing showed which parts are damaged, and in my mind helped explain why I write about planning.

You see I can't sustain attention at all. That part of my brain was roached when I had a brain bleed when I fell. Therefore I won't get better, but it's not likely to get worse. I simply cannot sustain attention without my brain deciding to 'squirrel off' somewhere.

The funny part is there's no amount of "self help" or talks or methods that can fix this. That part just won't even work right.

Fair enough.

Why 3 Steps.Today is my ticket to better thinking

If I can't pay attention in a sustained way, I can remedy it somewhat with you guessed it: planning and checklists.

I already do "time boxing" techniques like Pomodoro consistently at work, and have for years. Google it if you aren't familiar with the idea. Now I just do the same thing at home too. I plan my day and break things apart into small chunks.

That way I only have to work on what's the most immediate item on my checklist. I play to my strengths to mitigate the weaknesses.

My site 3Steps.Today documents the 3 parts of my process:

  • 1. Plan - Instead of wildy moving forward, take a step back and create a plan for the tasks at hand.
  • 2. Act - Planning is just wishful thinking if you don't take action. Follow the Plan you made from step 1.
  • 3. Review - Want to get better over time? Review the results of your actions from following your plan. Take a critical look at the results and find ways to improve.

That's it in a nutshell. I use a simple framework to keep myself on task and work toward thinking better. It's a way to use external items (a plan, pen and paper, etc.) to compensate for my inability to focus on - well, anything.

How do YOU Plan to succeed?

I use my own 3 step method (Plan - Act - Review) to overcome my weaknesses, and create strength. This allows me to plan to succeed. I enjoy the process so much that I have a site about it. :)

How to YOU plan your day to succeed? What areas of your life are weaknesses that planning helps to remedy?

I'd love to know! Leave a comment below!

Peace and Love,

-Rob

threeSteps - Hive Curation3.png

P.S. Don't consider my posts financial advice. Do your own research. I write for entertainment. One more thing - I'd love it if you signed up for my 3 Steps Today email list - I cover how to accomplish your daily goals in 3 steps.



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37 comments
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When I do make lists I tend to do better in my day. I do have a mental check list of things I like to do on the Hive blockchain. Sorry about your brain injury.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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Hey the brain injury is no big deal. I could've broken my neck. I am blessed to be here. :)

Lists are the beginning of your day are what works for me.

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Success means different things to different people. Success to me means having the time to do the things I love to do with the people I love and enjoy being with no matter what it may be and having the money to pay for it. Getting a big promotion at work is not success to me, it is just a step along the way. I have upvoted your email in ListNerds. Take care.

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Appreciate the well thought out comment. Success means different things to different people for sure.

ListNerds for the win.

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(Edited)

Great post Rob. Many people just give up when faced with a physical or mental challenge. It is much easier to get on disability and then tell whoever will listen how miserable their life is.
I admire your perseverance and how you decided to work with your situation rather than letting it control you.
I am enjoying your 3 steps email series.
Wishing you success and I found this post on List Nerds and upvoted it for you.

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Thanks so much for the kind words. I don't want to just roll over because I have a brain issue. Lots of people worse than me do more than I do. Glad you found this on ListNerds. It's been doing quite well for me.

Glad you like the email series. It's fundamentally changing over time. :)

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Sorry to hear about your head injury but very glad to see that you didn't let that get in the way of your success!
When I have a big goal to achieve I cut it into small weekly pieces then I cut them again in small daily pieces. When I do it that way, I have much more success than when I just try to achieve my goal without any planning. I also tend to stay more motivated during the process.
Upvoted your email on Listnerds 😉

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When I have a big goal to achieve I cut it into small weekly pieces then I cut them again in small daily pieces

That's a great way to accomplish larger goals; by breaking it down into milestone goals. Thanks for the upvote.

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One of my weaknesses is impatience but when I discovered poker it taught me to plan a strategy before acting. That has helped me a lot to improve and have some success.
I love to see that you continue to promote yourself on Listenerds and of course vote.

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Yep. I vote and leverage ListNerds. Working on setting up my automated mails. Blain said something the other day that I thought was a good idea:

  • set my URLs in the auto emails to my link tracker or rotator. Then I can just change the urls and keep the same auto-email URLs. Easy peasy
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Congratulations @threesteps! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):

You made more than 600 comments.
Your next target is to reach 700 comments.

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If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:

Hive Power Up Month - Feedback from February day 11
Valentine's day challenge - Give a badge to your beloved!
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
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I love your post and how you have dealt with your injury in a positive way. I would say it has made you sharper because you pay attention to what you need.Awesome work

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Appreciate it. I do need to keep an eye on what I am doing or else my brain goes into 'squirrel mode'. Sometimes it does that anyway, since I can't control the fact that I just don't have that physical piece of my brain any longer.

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Interesting to read how you have compensated for not being able to sustain attention. Your posts are always so well written, clearly focused and consistent that I was surprised by the diagnosis.

To answer your question, one weakness of mine is what my grandmother used to refer to as having "too many minds to go mad," which becomes evident in my "goal setting" each year...

This year, however, I am much more determined to focus on only ONE clear goal. It is still early days, but I am definitely seeing some positive results.

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Thanks David. I did score well on the verbal and word skills, so I think the part that is impacted by my injury is more article flow related. If I go back and read some of the initial posts I wrote on Hive, I can see where I was going from topic to topic.

Glad to see you doing just one goal. Do one thing well. :)

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I agree with you planning is paramount to success, just as I planned on reading emails today, btw gave yours an upvote!!

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Chris, thanks for the comment. I read quite a number today, and have more to read to clear up the backlog

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I find myself being a bit too lazy sometimes and it takes me a while to finally get things done. I have been trying to put down the more important items down on my list so I actually get them done and slowly try to move towards success.

I upvoted your mail in ListNerds.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

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Appreciate the upvote on ListNerds. I use Trello to keep my list of tasks. Highly effective.

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For me...It's my '3 things' list that I've been writing for years.

Each day, I find 3 things that will help me grow and find 'success' if I work on them. After each one, I cross it off my task list.

Working so far :)

Thanks for promoting via ListNerds!

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No worries Jon, it's easy to promote something that I like - such as ListNerds.

Interesting that this site of mine started because of the #threeStepsNoExcuses challenge you put on.

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In a world with so many distractions, it's hard to stay focused even if one hasn't been injured. That's why I agree, planning and execution on it are paramount. Listnerds is part of my daily plan, for example. :)

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ListNerds associated with the good practices mentioned above in the article will lead to success.
Peace

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Planning ahead is not only crucial to "doing things right" but it saves you time in the long run. I have learned my lesson the hard way. Great post

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Bob! I was hoping to see you comment! Glad to hear from you. On Telegram I sent you a number of messages. Good to see you buddy!

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I hardly ever look at Telegram. I gave up on the internet for a while. I was getting nowhere and my day was getting so repetitive. After several months of contemplation and study, I am back. I found a great product. Click Engine by Jeff Aman, which has me started on a positive path with some income plus residual income which I have never had before. Check it out if you haven't already.

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Bob, sounds good brother. So Glad to see you on here!

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You are an "All In" type of person and that is awesome but slow and steady is the coarse you need to take so you don't overwhelm your brain and need to take steps back. Keep crushing it.

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Thanks Mike. Yeah, I am tempering myself and working on just a couple items. Anything new I think of I just throw it on the bottom of my "Pile" and stay focused on the items I have planned for the next 25 minutes.

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Late in life I began to suspect I was on the autism spectrum as I read lots of stuff trying to help one of my children who is definitely non-neurotypical (computer developer, knows multiple languages, hates to be touched, brilliant bass player, extreme introvert, etc.) However our brains work, we need to be aware of our individual quirks and learn to maximize our own brain power--not fit into someone else's system.

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@fiberfrau sounds like we have the same kid, LOL! My son is 13, loves programming, works on learning languages (is teaching himself japanese), doesn't like loud noises, but isn't introverted. He has a 504 plan in place with the local school and we work with his guidance counselor to keep him on track. Ridiculous smart, and is enjoying learning spanish.

As for fitting into other's pre-made mold, nope. :) Don't have to worry about that. Knowing HOW my brain is impacted does give me good hope though, because now I know what weaknesses I can play toward and what strengths to use to mitigate it as much as possible.

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I use my Simpleology start my day to list all my tasks for the day. It has a recurring tasks list that I go througn and add as needed. It is hard to believe you aren't able to sustain attention to anything. Your writing sure doesn't show it.

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Thanks for the kind words. According to the neuro docs, I compensate for lack of long-term sustained focus in other ways. It's not that I can't memorize stuff, etc. My memory works. It's that I can't stay on one task without my brain thinking about other things. I use my 3 Step process to stay on track.

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You're very welcome, Rob! That's interesting. My Dad is having vision and hearing issues. But his sense of smell is spot on. Last night I walked past him to come upstairs and he said he smelled something sweet. I had an immunity booster supplement in my hand to bring to Roy. I was pretty far away from him. So I walked up to him and asked him if that was what he was smelling. And yup that was it. Crazy
Enjoy your day!



Made in Canva

-- @lisamgentile1961

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Self-review of the actions can be less objective. I found it difficult to execute myself.

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