commanding life – Clear Air Turbulence

The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What On Earth Are You Thinking?

June 6, 2023June 2, 2023AP2

What On Earth Are You Thinking?

“A person’s success in life can be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”
– Tim Ferris

What is External Self-Awareness?

Most people think about self-awareness the same way they do sex. They believe they’re great at it when, in reality, no-one knows where on God’s green earth the G spot is (or that there even is one).

One of the major components for building self-awareness is understanding what other people honestly think about us (including our ability to have sex).

This is what’s known as external self-awareness. Researchers have concluded it’s every bit as important as internal self-awareness (how well we know ourselves).

Here’s a pretty little table outlining the 4 major Self-Awareness Archetypes:

Why We Suck at Giving and Receiving (Feedback)

Now, the major issue we have with external self-awareness is ascertaining honest feedback from others. This is a major issue for two obvious reasons.

First, people usually avoid telling us what they really think. In fact, most people fake certain feedback making us think we’re much better than we really are!
Second, we avoid asking for feedback in the first place. We’d rather remain under the covers than be told about our own, um, shortcomings…

This a brutal truth to remember during your never-ending self-awareness journey: Not only do you not want to tell people the truth, you don’t want to know the truth yourself.

But of course, knowing the truth is the only way we can become slightly less terrible human beings. So, a crucial life skill at home, work, or in the bedroom is learning to both give and receive (feedback).

The question, as always, is how?

How to Both Give and Receive (Feedback)

The first thing to remember is that you’re a human aeroplane. One that is governed by all sorts of internal biases/faulty mechanisms.

For example:

Our memories suck the big one. They are unreliable and often flat-out wrong, especially when remembering how we felt at a particular time or place. Our ability to predict our thoughts and feelings in the future is even worse.
We overestimate ourselves constantly. As a general rule, the worse we are at something, the better we think we are, and the better we are at something, the worse we believe we are. It’s like that quote, “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.“
We all suffer from a confirmation bias. We look for evidence that affirms our worldview while discarding anything that challenges it. In fact, contradictory evidence often makes us more confident of our position.

What I’m trying to say is we’re all a bunch of stupid apes who think way too highly of ourselves. You know what?

That’s OK.

The point of becoming aware of our flaws is to gain some control over them. But this doesn’t work if we don’t learn to accept those flaws at the same time.

So, here are a few ideas.

1. Hold weak opinions.

Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. They also tend to stink up the room.

It’s worth remembering you’re the only person who loves the smell of your farts. That’s not to say you shouldn’t. But when you do fart, don’t take it so seriously.

THEY ARE JUST THOUGHTS!

Thoughts are simply echoes of all the crap you’ve been fed. (Helpful tip: eat a wholesome diet of long-from content such as books or documentaries.)

Here’s a thought to chew on? Are your opinions really your own? Think about that for a second.

2. Consider you’re wrong.

Something you can do before you open that smelly mouth of yours is tell yourself the following: “I might be wrong about this.”

This immediately places you in a state of openness and curiosity. When you do this, your thoughts aren’t shared to be validated but discussed. This is a better position for everyone.

Just ask your spouse!

3. Laugh at yourself.

All your thoughts and behaviours are simply reactions to your emotions. As you should know by now, your feelings be crazy. You shouldn’t take them so seriously.

Something you can do is openly mock yourself for all your shortcomings. This has the paradoxical effect of making you more endearing in the eyes of others.

4. Remember your strengths.

All of us have this thing called a negativity bias. It’s worth being aware of. This is why we tend to fixate on and obsess over all our flaws.

What we fail to realise is that our weaknesses are often intimately linked to our strengths. For example, I’m not the grittiest person in the world. I’m easily distracted. I frequently have my head stuck in the clouds.

But you know what?

I’m also incredibly thoughtful, creative, silly, and funny. These qualities aren’t separate. By reminding myself of my strengths, and seeing how they’re related to my weakness, I’m more accepting of my flaws.

I’m better able to work on them as a result.

5. Start with the positives.

Criticism hurts like your first time! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of us aren’t terribly receptive to it.

The danger is we shut down. This is especially so if we receive feedback that confirms a negative view we already have about ourselves.

That’s why it’s a wise strategy to start with the positives. Talk about what went well before you mention the negatives.

You can think of it as feedback foreplay. It helps to soften everything up!

6. Learn your patterns.

Learn to recognise all the ways you’re a deeply flawed human being.

Recognise how you’re not a morning person. Recognise how you’re quick to anger when you’re tired or when your children start to open their mouths.

Learn to recognise what your triggers are. What sends you down the emotional rabbit hole? At what times? With who? What causes you to reach for the phone or the bottle?

This will help you recognise which emotions you’re avoiding that need to be acknowledged and surrendered.

7. Practise with a trusted co-pilot.

Both my wife and I avoid confrontation. This is because we are both very agreeable by nature. This a big problem mainly because I’m a massive idiot. I need my wife to confront me.

To ensure this happens we make a point of talking to each other every evening without fail. We have a series of questions we ask:

What are you grateful for today? What are you proud of? What went well?
What didn’t go well? What could you do better?
What do you want me to know? What can I do better?
Finally, what can we do better? How can we improve as a couple/parents?

This is what I suggest you do as a final point.

Find a trusted copilot you can confide in. Make a habit of talking to that trusted copilot every day. Make a habit of telling them something difficult – of being vulnerable.

Make a point of asking for feedback and giving some advice in return. Put your phone away and really listen.

What you might find is, it ends in sex. There will be no need to fake anything.

Summary

One of the major components for building self-awareness is understanding what other people honestly think about us. This is what’s known as external self-awareness.
Most of us avoid giving people honest feedback. Most of us avoid asking for it too.
To help give and receive honest feedback it’s useful to:
- hold weak opinions/consider the possibility we’re wrong
- remember our strengths when we receive feedback
- start with the positives when we give feedback
- practise asking for and giving feedback with someone we trust

This is part 4 of a series of posts on the topic of Self-Awareness:

Part 1: The Automation Paradox

Part 2: The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Doing?

Part 3: The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What on Earth Am I Feeling?

Part 4: The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What On Earth Are You Thinking?

***

For a weekly collection of tips and tricks designed to help you navigate your fears and take command of life – join my Stuck in the Clouds newsletter here.

Stuck in the Clouds: On the Danger of Asking Why and How To Overcome Morning Overwhelm

May 26, 2023May 26, 2023AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to my high-flying newsletter! The only newsletter that believes you shouldn’t peel onions…

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 Thoughts:

1) Asking why we are the way we are is like peeling an onion. Under the first layer there might be an important insight. But after that it’s just more onion. You have to be very careful not to keep peeling in a desperate attempt to find some cosmic truth that doesn’t exist. – click to tweet

2) The best way to increase focus is to eliminate distractions. The second best way to increase focus is to compartmentalise your life – to be clear about what you’re suppose to be doing and when. This gives us the best chance to engage in deep work – to harness those coveted flow states.

3) 5 ways to overcome morning overwhelm:

Develop an internal voice that says I can.
Slow things down by meditating.
Lock your phone in a draw.
Remind yourself why you’re doing what you are.
Tackle the most pressing task first.

2 Quotes:

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
— Edward J. Stieglitz

“It is not that we have a short time to live. It is that we waste a lot of it. . . . People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
— Seneca

1 Joke

If you’re American when you go in the bathroom… and American when you come out, what are you in the bathroom?

European!

For more insightful quotes you should probably ignore you can follow me on twitter here.

You can also sign up for my Stuck in the Clouds newsletter here and receive my free ebook: 66 insights for commanding life.

The Automation Paradox

May 2, 2023April 28, 2023AP2

If there’s one aviation disaster that darkens my knickers more than most, it’s AirFrance 447 – the scheduled passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1st, 2009.

In a very simplified nutshell, this is what happened.

Approximately 2 hours after takeoff, AirFrance 447 entered a storm system that caused the instrumentation that measures the aircraft’s airspeed to ice over.

As a result, a few things happened:

First, they lost their airspeed indications (rather, they became unreliable).
Second, the autopilot said, “Here you go,” and dropped out.
Finally, several of the aircraft’s protections were lost, including the ability to prevent the plane from stalling (as this required accurate airspeed indications).

Now the pilot flying, who was clearly spooked at the time, reacted by pulling back on the sidestick, pitching the aircraft into a steep climb.

(Many experts are unsure as to why he did this. It’s possible he was trying to fly above the weather or thought they were going too fast. At any rate – at high altitude and heavy weight – this isn’t advisable.)

This caused the airspeed to decay and the angle of attack (the wing’s angle relative to the airflow) to increase.

Shortly afterward, the stall alarm went off.

At this point, the crew recognised that they had lost their airspeed. Although the pilot flying had reacted incorrectly initially, this should have been enough to correct his mistake.

All he had to do was point the nose back down.

Instead, the pilot flying continued to pitch up – the exact opposite of what we are taught to do to recover from a stall in flight.

Eventually, the plane did stall.

Despite repeated stall warnings, neither pilot ever acknowledged or even mentioned this as a possibility.

In the ensuing confusion, it seemed they stopped trusting the aircraft’s indications altogether. (Clearly unaware that stalling the plane was even possible.)

Yet, despite not knowing what was happening or why, the pilot flying continued to pull back on the sidestick. He did this almost continuously till impact.

As Popular Mechanics explains, “The reason that AF447 crashed wasn’t because of weather, or any malfunction, nor even a complex chain of events, but a single & persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots.”

The Automation Paradox

“It requires much more training and experience, not less, to fly highly automated planes.”– Sully Sullenberg.

There are many lessons to come from this disaster, but the most pertinent one highlights the dangers of placing too much faith in automation.

Because of the massive technological advances in aviation, the chances of a pilot encountering a crisis in flight have significantly reduced. However, over – for the same reason – it has meant that pilots are often less able to cope when an emergency does occur.

Many experts in the field have dubbed this the automation paradox. The very thing that has significantly improved airline safety over the past 60 years has made us worse at flying an aircraft.

The hard truth is this: that minor glitch – a temporary loss of airspeed indication – overwhelmed the pilots that day. If they had sat on their hands and done nothing, they would have all lived to fly another day.

Now, I don’t tell you all of this to darken your knickers or to make you think worse of the exemplary professionals sitting at the front of your aeroplane. (There are several extenuating factors I haven’t mentioned here.)

But to highlight the dangers an overreliance on automation poses to you in everyday life.

The automation paradox is a threat to all of us.

I’m not just talking about your car’s inbuilt GPS or your smartphones (although they don’t help). More specifically, I’m referring to the mode under which most of us operate for the vast majority of our lives: on autopilot.

The Dangers of Living on Autopilot

Contrary to popular belief, living on autopilot isn’t a bad thing. We were designed to automate the majority of our actions. This is what allows us to walk down the street without having to think about it. This allows us to stare at our smartphones at the same time. That is, until we face-plant a lamppost!

This is when living on autopilot creates problems. When we get too comfortable doing so – when we hide behind it or operate on it without even realising we are.

Have you ever started walking in the wrong direction – say towards work instead of the shops – out of habit? Only to wake up after a few minutes?

This is what I mean.

It’s not operating on autopilot that’s the problem, but losing awareness of when we are and, consequently, what our autopilot is doing and why.

Much is made about the dangers of the automation paradox in aviation for this reason.

A pilot who places too much faith in automation is more liable to stop paying attention, failing to understand what the aircraft’s systems are doing and why. Or, crucially, how they should respond on the rare occasion that the aircraft’s systems do fail.

A technically proficient pilot, on the other hand, who is paying attention is better equipped to first recognise and then handle any non-normal scenario when they may be forced to (or should) take over manually.

This is something we like to call having good situational awareness.

The 3 Levels of Situational Awareness

There are 3 levels to situational awareness:

Level 1 is the perception of what is happening.
Level 2 is the understanding of what has been perceived.
Level 3 is using that knowledge to think ahead.

Priority number one, therefore, is to pay attention – to keep scanning your instruments – to make sure the aircraft is flying at the speed, level, and direction you want.

If you’re not paying attention it becomes more challenging to understand what is happening and why – let alone formulate a plan to deal with it.

But perception alone isn’t enough. We also need understanding. We need to be technically proficient. We need to understand our ships intimately.

One of the best ways to do this is to practice hand flying. To prepare for the worst by thinking ahead and having a plan in place. But also taking the time to reflect – to learn from your mistakes – to spot your weakness and understand your strengths.

Basically, know thyself.

Of course, what I’m really talking about here is self-awareness. Carefully monitoring your impulses, reactions, thoughts, and emotions gives you the best chance to work with them more skilfully – to understand whether they’re grounded in reality or not (probably not).

If you’re overly reliant on your autopilot, on the other hand, you lose this awareness. When you fail to understand where your thoughts, reactions, or emotions are coming from, you’re more liable to let your autopilot take you on an inverted joyride till 5am on a Saturday morning… Or worse.

Perception + Understanding = Awareness.

To return to the story of AF447, the pilots both perceived what had happened that day. Indeed, they accurately diagnosed the problem. But they never understood what that meant or how to respond.

The pilot flying reacted before he had a clear understanding of what was going on. Then both of them failed to understand the situation they had created for themselves. Despite never gaining clarity, the pilot flying kept pitching up in desperation.

He kept beating his head against a brick wall.

This might be the most significant everyday issue we have. We act without awareness. We don’t sit on our hands long enough to gain the clarity we need before taking action. We don’t spend enough time living with the autopilot out – to understand how we should respond when faced with a challenging situation or emotion.

To know that when we stall you must push the nose down.

We have a motto in aviation for this reason. It says, “Use it or lose it.” We say this because flying is a skill. And like any skill, it must be practiced to develop and maintain.

Living on autopilot isn’t a big deal on most days when the weather is calm and visibility clear. But on a dark and stormy night, when the shit hits the fan blades, it isn’t your autopilot that will save you, but your ability to fly manually.

How we do this, exactly. will be the subject of my upcoming series of posts.

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://wiseandshinezine.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

You can also email him directly at: anxiouspilot2@gmail.com

Stuck in the Clouds: On Lifting Weight and Paying Attention

April 21, 2023April 21, 2023AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to my high-flying newsletter! The only weekly newsletter that constantly loses its train of thought..

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 Thoughts:

1) “To gain physical strength we must carry more weight. It’s resistance that builds strength. To gain mental strength we must carry less weight. It’s resistance that weakens us.” – click to tweet

2) “Don’t make your life about the final destination. Don’t hang your pilot’s hat on having to get there. The point of having a destination is to give you direction. But also release you from the future so you can concentrate on the present – so you can enjoy the journey itself! If you pay close attention to the steps you’re taking today, the destination will take care of itself.” – click to tweet

3) “Knowledge is no longer power. All of us have access to an unlimited amount of it. The most successful will be those who are able to maintain their focus in spite of the limitless information available. Attention is the new super power.” – click to tweet

2 Quotes:

“The surest way to lose sight of who you are is to constantly compare yourself to others.”
– Tom Krause

“We have solved the problem of not having enough information by creating the problem of having too much information.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

1 Joke:

A conductor got distracted at work.

He lost his train of thought.

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://wiseandshinezine.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

You can also email him directly at: anxiouspilot2@gmail.com

***

To have my weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox sign up for my Stuck in the Clouds newsletter here.

A Radical Idea. (I’m Going To Write a Book.)

October 31, 2022October 31, 2022AP2

Just imagine, you’re sat fat, dumb and happy when BAM! Your engine shits itself. (And so do you.) Suddenly you’re forced to divert. You need to get on the ground pronto!

Before you know it, there you are. Grounded with a bum engine – a million miles from the original destination you had in mind.

So, you find yourself sat around in your underpants on a Thursday afternoon scratching your whatsit wondering what to do with the rest of your life. (Probably not scratch your whatsit.)

After twiddling your thumbs you decide, at exactly 3:34 pm, you’re going to grab the day by the horns. So, you make a cuppa and sit down at your desk. After checking facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube and then facebook and twitter again, you begin typing.

All that thumb twiddling has given you a radical idea. (Actually, it’s given you many, but not all of them are suitable from younger readers.)

You decide that the time is now or never. After all, your wife is bringing home the bacon. You have no excuses. “No more thumb twiddling!” you say.

It’s down to business.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here I am. This time I’m really doing it. I’m committing. I’m going all in. I’m going to start by stating it out loud.

But first let me check facebook one more time. Oh look! Someone liked the photo of the coffee I made. (Yesterday’s main accomplishment.) Yay!

Anyway, back to this radical idea, this pet project of mine.

A book, damn it!

There, I said it. No backsies. I’m going to take my thumb out and write one. By announcing it out loud it I figure that

a) you dear readers can hold me accountable and,
b) give me some much needed feedback as I progress and, crucially,
c) tell me how to actually write a book.

Because I don’t have the first clue!

Anyway, I guess I should start by telling you what my radical idea for this book is.

This tremendous book (title to be decided) will combine lessons in aviation (and life) with modern psychology (and a bit of ancient philosophy) in an attempt to help people hit the metaphorical reset button and rebuild their lives from the ground up.

The idea is to provide a roadmap for those who feel their lives have stalled – who feel lost and unsure about what direction to take – who feel overwhelmed and burnout out. (So yes, me.) It’s going to talk them through the stall recovery. The need to come back to earth in order to gain some much needed clarity and perspective. But also to regain the energy and lift needed to maintain a sustainable climb over the long haul. (Of course all of this will play to my strengths: long extended aviation metaphors.)

It will be broken down, roughly, into four parts.

Section 1 will be entitled Grounded.
Section 2 will be entitled Lift.
Section 3 will be entitled Turbulence.
Section 4 will be entitled Moral Compass.

Sections 3 and 4 will expand upon 1 and 2 respectively. A kind of beginners section and command section. This will possibly be spilt into two books (or a series of mini books). Anyway, this is just me spitballing – the basic idea I have in mind – all to be expanded upon in due time dear readers.

For now I just want to throw it out there and get your feedback on

a) the idea itself and
b) where the hell I should start? (From the ground up I suppose.)

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://wiseandshinezine.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

You can also email him directly at: anxiouspilot2@gmail.com

3-2-1 Flying Fridays

June 10, 2022June 10, 2022AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to 3-2-1 Flying Fridays! The only weekly post that never gives up – even when all hope is lost!

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) We’re taught to do things to please our parents for survival. When we eventually grow up we realise we don’t have to do things to please others anymore. Only what we know is right in our hearts. Often that means saving yourself because we’re the only ones that can.

2) It’s important to maintain both a sense of control and a sense of change in our lives. Too much predictability the more meaningless our existence begins to feel. But too much change can throw us into chaos. We start to feel out of control. We need to pursue meaningful but manageable change over time. To do that we need to imagine the person we want to become and then take baby steps through steady, controlled self-discipline.

3) When a pilot flies an aeroplane the last thing they aim at is the obstacle they don’t want to hit. If a plane is on fire the pilots only have one goal: The nearest piece of tarmac. They will think of nothing else. They sure as hell won’t give up, even if the odds are truly stacked against them. How could they? Why would they? And why would you?

2 x Quotes:

“My conclusion as a clinical psychologist has been that as paralyzing and terrible as our propensity for negative emotion is, and as grounded in reality as that propensity might be, it’s more the case that our ability to overcome it is actually stronger than it’s grip on us.”
— Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
— Charles Darwin

1 x Joke:

It’s been raining a lot here recently. When we went outside yesterday I asked my wife is she wanted to hear a joke about umbrellas.

She said, “No, it’ll probably go straight over my head.”

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTER:

3-2-1 Flying Fridays – 20/05/22

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You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Or on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

3-2-1 Flying Fridays

May 20, 2022May 18, 2022AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to 3-2-1 Flying Fridays! The only weekly post that has a personality disorder…

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 something special (maybe).

As a bonus I’ve finished with one joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) A great way to unburden your mind is to write your worries down on paper. Then, ask yourself some objective questions about those thoughts and write those answers down. Then, keep going – keep asking questions about your answers and writing those thoughts down. Eventually, as if by magic, you’ll come to a surprising insight.

2) What you want is a different hat to wear for every occasion. But you also want to wear the hat most suited to who you are as much as you possibly can. To put it another way: you should specialise at what you are but practise what you aren’t.

3) Your personality is the lens through which you view the world. Part of what colours this lens has do with the social context under which we have been raised. But another major part has to do with the innate personality traits that we were born with. Who we are – who we really are – runs deep. This understanding is important. Not only for knowing who we should become, but for helping us understand that other people are fundamentally different. It’s this understanding that helps foster greater compassion and tolerance for “the other side.” It also encourages us to engage with the other side so they can help point out our blind spots.

2 x Quotes:

“To be human means to be constantly in the grip of opposing emotions, to daily reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but I need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite, too.”
— Stephen Fry

“What frightens us or gives us anxiety is not when bad things happen—it’s when we’re not sure whether a bad thing will happen or not.”
— Mark Manson

1 x Thing:

This Mark Manson article: The 3 Paradoxes of Life in which he answers the question of finding contentment by wrestling with the 3 paradoxes of life. The paradox of choice struck a chord with me in particular. As he writes, “Freedom is only meaningful when it is given up. And we give up freedom by making commitments.” Well worth a read!

1 x Joke:

Did you hear the tragic news about the Italian chef who died?

He pasta-way!

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTER:

3-2-1 Flying Fridays – 13/05/22

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Or on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

Fear-Setting: A powerful exercise for making major life decisions.

March 28, 2022AP2

Beware Fear Disguised As Optimism.

“There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, ‘Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,’ and an optimist who says, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine any way.’ Either way, nothing happens.”
— Yvon Chouinard

Most of us don’t call fear out for what it is. We often dress it up as something else. Many of us will even rationalise our fear as optimism.

We entertain thoughts that our situation will magically improve over time. This is common for someone working a job they dislike.

But the truth is – if you feel the same way you did several months or years ago – things probably won’t get better by themselves. Unless you do something about it, the chances are you’ll remain just as unhappy as you are now.

This is what’s happened to me.

Right now I’m standing at the edge of the precipice about to take a leap of faith. All of my gremlins have come crawling out of the woodwork.

They’re whispering in my ear. Telling me this is a massive mistake, that it will end in disaster, that I have no idea what I’m doing…

Of course fear wants us to play it safe. It wants us to choose certainty over happiness. That’s because the ego isn’t interested happiness. It’s only interested in survival.

But that’s why it’s important to understand just how dangerous that leap of faith really is.

But to do that, you first have to embrace your demons. You have to give them the time and space to air out their concerns. So that you can really examine them. So you can hold them up in the light and see that fear for what it is:

False.
Evidence.
Appearing.
Real.

This helps us understand where our fears are really coming from. It helps us see what we can do to mitigate those concerns. Which fears are worth listening to and which really aren’t.

This in turn can give us the strength we need to take that leap of faith.

Fear-Setting: A powerful exercise for making major life decisions.

“You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort.”
— Jean Cocteau.

With this in mind I have an exercise you might consider. It’s an exercise I ran through the other night in an attempt to gain more clarity on my impending decision to divert from Hong Kong and my career in aviation.

It’s called fear-setting – an exercise that Tim Ferris called, “the most valuable one he does every month.” If you’re interested his article breaks it down in greater detail.

In a nut shell, here’s what you do:

First, you write down the major life change you’re considering.
Second, define the worst case scenario in pain staking detail. Ask yourself if it really would be the end of your life? How permanent would it be? How likely is the worst case scenario?
Third, ask yourself what steps could you take to repair the damage/deal with worst. Would you be able to get another job? What if you were fired from your job today? What would you do? How would you cope?
Forth, ask yourself what the outcomes/benefits of a more probable scenario are. What are the definite positive outcomes (including for your self-esteem, mental and physical health etc)? What would the impact of these more likely outcomes be?
Fifth, ask what the cost will be if you do nothing? What is the cost of inaction? What will it cost you financially, emotionally & physically if you postpone this difficult choice?
Finally, ask yourself what you’re so afraid of? What are currently putting off out of fear?

Perhaps It’s Better the Devil You Don’t Know?

“It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known. That’s what you fear.”
– SJ Anthony de Mello

After running through this exercise the other night I came to a number of important insights.

I realised the nightmare scenario I’d been envisioning was one in a million. And the benefits – the positive outcomes – were much more likely. Even if the worst did come to pass, I realised that much of what I felt I was giving up was reversible.

But I also considered what the longer term costs of inaction might be. This presented me with another picture. One that was every bit as scary as the one that had been causing me to hesitate.

So I asked myself, ‘what I am really afraid of here?’

After giving it some thought it occurred to me that I what fear most – isn’t what the future might hold – but losing what I know.

I fear losing the gremlins that have kept safe for so long.

People often say it’s better the devil you know. But what if the devil you don’t know isn’t a devil after all?

After all, you don’t know.

What if it’s not an angel sent to save you? If only you had the courage to reach out to it – if only you had the strength to take that leap of faith and leave the shoreline behind.

The truth is, change is the only inevitability in this life. To cling to what we know only provides us with a false sense of security.

I would argue, to embrace change – to embrace the unknown – is to embrace life itself.

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Or on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

3-2-1 Flying Fridays

November 19, 2021November 19, 2021AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to the Flying Fridays newsletter! The only weekly newsletter that tells you to stop playing so it can win…

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 something special (maybe).

As a bonus I’ve finished with one joke that’s so bad, it’s good!

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) Before you play a game, there’s an important question you should ask yourself. That’s why you’re playing the game that you are, because the reason you’re playing – your why – has got to be bigger than winning. Success alone isn’t enough. Winning isn’t enough. Why do you want more followers on Twitter, or Instagram, or WordPress? Why do you want to become a published author? Why do you want to get that promotion? What is the reason for playing the game that you are?

2) No child plays to win. A child plays because it wants to play. That’s because playing is an expression of joy. Playing is an expression of freedom. Playing, in its purest form, is an expression of love. The reason for playing at anything is for the love of that thing.

3) If you want more than what you already have, you’re poor. If you believe you have more than enough, you’re rich. This is true regardless of how much stuff you actually have.

2 x Quotes:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“[A] low state of consciousness occurs when “we believe we are separate from everything else, alone and vulnerable.” If the world is all about you and your political preferences, injustices, fears, wants, and attention-seeking, then you’re putting yourself in a low state of consciousness. You’re taking every little thing too damn seriously and not zooming out to see the big picture: you are just like them, there is no enemy, people change, you’re not here for long, and your opinion isn’t right or wrong (it just is).”
– Consciousness expert Vishen Lakhiani

1 x Thing:

This Psychology Today article: Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Visualization by resilience coach A.J. Adams. Using a number of example A.J. Adams demonstrates just how powerful the practise of visualisation can be for achieving your goals/improving performance. Her advice below:

“Begin by establishing a highly specific goal. Imagine the future; you have already achieved your goal. Hold a mental “picture” of it as if it were occurring to you right at that moment. Imagine the scene in as much detail as possible. Engage as many of the five senses as you can in your visualization. Who are you with? Which emotions are you feeling right now? What are you wearing? Is there a smell in the air? What do you hear? What is your environment? Sit with a straight spine when you do this. Practice at night or in the morning (just before/after sleep). Eliminate any doubts, if they come to you. Repeat this practice often. Combine with meditation or an affirmation (e.g. “I am courageous; I am strong.”)
– A.J. Adams.

1 x Joke:

My wife mentioned that there was a lunar eclipse this evening.

I asked, “Do you know how the moon cuts his hair?

“Eclipse it, of course!”

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3-2-1 Flying Fridays – 5/11/21

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Are You Playing To Win or To Avoid Losing?

November 15, 2021November 15, 2021AP2

Let me ask you a question. When you play a game, when you embark on a project, when you go to work, when you get up in the morning, when you sit down to write, when you make a presentation, when you have to do anything,

Are you playing to win or to avoid losing?

If you’re wondering what the difference is, when you play to win you’re focused on it. When you play to win, you back yourself to achieve, you back yourself to perform, you back yourself to get shit done.

When you’re playing to avoid losing, on the other hand, well, you’re not really playing. You’re simply trying to avoid making mistakes. Your focus is on the negative outcome. As a result, you’re always on guard for fear of failure or embarrassment.

Psychologists call this the difference between a performance approach and a performance avoidance mindset. Study after study has concluded that those with a performance approach mindset have a much easier time immersing themselves in the game and entering a flow-like state.

I’ve experienced both multiple times.

When I didn’t really want to be at work – when I had to fly through the night or with a Captain I didn’t get along with, I fretted. Not only did this spoil the game, it affected my performance. Even if I did make it through unscathed, the feeling wasn’t one of confidence but relief.

The truth was, on those occasions, I wasn’t in it to win it. I was merely trying to avoid failure for fear of being found out.

Conversely, when I did show up to work with a willing attitude. When I backed myself to do well in a sim or pull off a landing in tricky conditions, it was rarely as bad a day at the office. Not only would I perform better and gain more confidence as a result, if I did make a mistake I was able to look at it objectively.

Instead of viewing them as confirmation that I wasn’t capable, I was able to take the lessons onboard. That same attitude then gave me the impetuous to get back on the horse and have another go.

The question is, how do we adopt such an attitude consistently? How do we take a performance approach to work and life every time we show up to play?

For Adopting a Winning Mindset

One technique that’s used by many top athletes is visualisation. Psychology Today notes that mental practices “enhance motivation, increase confidence and self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for success, and increase states of flow.”

The idea is you mentally rehearse the performance ahead of time. Not only that, you visualise the future after you’ve achieved your goal. You picture it in vivid detail. Imagine the scene – the time and place, the people you’re with, how it feels, etc. The more detailed the meditation, the better. It helps to combine it with a positive affirmation.

But before you do that, there’s an important question you should ask yourself. Especially if you find yourself repeatedly playing to avoid losing. That’s why you’re playing the game that you are, because the reason you’re playing – your why – has got to be bigger than winning.

Success alone isn’t enough. Winning isn’t enough. Why do you want more followers on Twitter, or Instagram, or WordPress? Why do you want to become a published author? Why do you want to get that promotion? Why do you want to be a captain, or a lawyer, or a doctor?

What is the reason for playing the game that you are?

It’s worth stating that no child plays to win. A child plays because it wants to play. That’s because playing is an expression of joy. Playing is an expression of freedom. Playing, in its purest form, is an expression of love.

The reason for playing at anything is for the love of that thing.

You play to play. Similarly, you write to write. You don’t write to become a published author or get thousands of followers. You don’t write to win. You write because you love the craft. You fly aeroplanes because getting airborne gives you a rush that few other things can.

One of the problems we have in today’s results-obsessed culture is that we forget those reasons for playing in the first place. That desire to win, to be successful, to say we have achieved this, that or what-the-fuck ever (by the way, no-one else cares except you) takes over. We end up thinking that winning is the point.

This blinds us.

If you’re not careful, ambition has a way of sucking the life out of everything in its wake. It has a way of sucking the fun out of play too. Which misses the point completely.

Winston Churchill once said, “Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” That’s the point right there. To keep your spirit, to keep your love for the game going no matter how many times you get knocked down. So you get back up, over and over again.

If you play enough times in this life, you will win eventually. The most important thing is to make sure that you’re playing the game you want to play when you do.

Otherwise, you really have lost.

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Or on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

Finding Life Balance Using the Four Forces of Flight

September 11, 2021May 25, 2023AP2

Do you feel like the weight of responsibility is keeping you grounded? Or the sheer drag of life is forcing on the brakes?

Do you find it hard to muster the requisite lift and thrust to overcome these forces in life?

Of course, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had those days where everything has felt like one big drag, where the simple act of getting out of bed has felt like this herculean task.

To be honest, that’s how I’ve been feeling recently. It got me thinking about this idea of life balance and how, exactly, one is supposed to find it?

Then something struck me. I thought, “Of course! Balance isn’t something you find. It is something you have to maintain – like a tightrope walker!”

Three ideas immediately sprung to mind:

Don’t carry too much weight.
Go at a steady pace.
Don’t stop moving.

Then, as soon as I wrote these thoughts down, I had another brain wave.

It occurred to me that the same laws govern an aeroplane in flight. Then it occurred to me that the laws of aerodynamics might be able to teach us how to maintain balance in our own lives.

So I came up with this post.

Anyway dear readers, please sit back and relax with your seat belts securely fasten, because I’m about to teach you how to fly…

The Four Forces of Flight

To give you a quick lesson in aerodynamics, the four forces of flight are thrust, lift, drag, and weight.

When you throw a paper aeroplane you give it thrust. On a conventional aeroplane thrust is generated by a propeller or jet engine that pulls air in and pushes it out in the opposite direction.

The forward motion of the aeroplane causes air to pass over the wings. Because of the camber of the wing, this creates a pressure differential that sucks the wings upward. This force – namely lift – is what holds an aeroplane in the air.

Counter to these forces are drag and weight.

Drag is the resistance the aeroplane meets as it flies through the air. Weight is the force caused by gravity that pulls the aeroplane toward the earth. Thrust counteracts drag, whereas lift counteracts weight.

Now, if lift and thrust are greater than weight and drag, your aeroplane will climb. If they are less, it will descend. If they are balanced, your aeroplane will remain in level flight.

Here’s an awesome diagram:

The Four Forces of Living

To rename the four forces of flight, we can say that the four forces of living are Health, Purpose, Life & Responsibility.

Just like an aeroplane, these forces counteract one another. Health (Thrust) counteracts Life (Drag), whereas Purpose (Lift) counteracts Responsibility (Weight).

Instead of an aeroplane, of course, it’s you that’s stuck in the middle.

Here’s another awesome diagram:

Now, we can say that we’re out of balance when the forces of life and responsibility are much greater than the other two.

This usually happens for one of two reasons.

The first comes from trying to avoid drag and weight altogether, preventing you from getting airborne in the first place (or out of bed). At the other end of the balance scales are those who carry far more than they’re capable of, causing them to stall.

From experience, I believe the latter is a far better place to be. The way I see it, having too much on your plate is a good thing. It means your life is already filled with purpose and meaning.

That’s half the battle.

Once you’re off the ground (which is the hardest part) balance becomes a question of priorities. Understanding exactly what we should pay attention to and what we should let go of.

With that in mind, let’s tackle these issues from the ground up by looking at what it takes to get airborne in the first place.

Thrust vs Drag

Life is drag.

Getting out of bed in the morning is drag. Making your breakfast, brushing your teeth, taking your dog for a walk, Donald Trump… all of these things are drag.

What I mean is, anything and everything you do will always involve a certain amount of energy to overcome. It is unavoidable. No matter how streamlined your aeroplane is, you will always encounter resistance.

The problem with attempts to avoid drag is it makes us weaker. Of course, this makes everything much harder. We need to test ourselves – to actively meet the resistance of life – to gain strength from it.

Just like lifting weights in the gym causes us to gain muscle mass. By meeting the resistance of life, we gain strength from it. As we gain strength, over time, we’re able to climb higher. The higher we climb in life, the less resistance there is, the easier it becomes.

Badda bing badda boom.

So, how do we meet the resistance of life?

We meet the resistance of life by targeting the very thing that creates the most drag: your health.

The better your health is, the more energy you will have, the greater your ability to face and overcome life’s obstacles.

Thrust is more critical than lift.

Theoretically, with enough thrust, you can climb without generating any lift – like a rocketship. It’s impossible to get off the ground without it. That isn’t true of lift. Lift needs thrust to get off the ground. That’s why, as everyone likes to say, there is nothing more important than your health.

Health is thrust.

This is where we must start if we want to maintain balance.

How to Increase Thrust

The four pillars of health are rest (sleep), fuel (diet), movement (exercise) and mental health.

Let me break each of those down for you.

Prioritise your sleep.

The most productive thing you can do is prioritise your sleep and then build your life around it. Here are a few top tips from yours truly.

Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Have a proper evening routine to help you wind down in the evening and a kick-ass morning routine to get you pumped after you wake up.

Other things worth considering include limiting caffeine and alcohol consumption. Also, limiting blue light exposure in the evenings and increasing it in the mornings. (Hello sunlight!)

For more about sleep, I can highly recommend checking out this site: thesleepdoctor.com.

A book I can also highly recommend is Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.

Change your diet.

The food you eat is the fuel you put into your aeroplane. If you feed it garbage, you’re going to get shit performance. A balanced diet is so essential for generating thrust.

Of course, I could prattle on about getting your five a day, but I don’t want to bore you. I can, however, recommend you take a look at Dr. Mark Hyman’s blog.

His book, What The Heck Should I Eat, is worth your time.

Get regular exercise.

An aeroplane needs to fly the same way a car needs to be driven. If you leave your car in the garage for too long, it’s going to create problems. We are designed to move. I suggest a mixture of weight lifting, core exercises, cardio, and yoga.

Of course, if you hate going to the gym, then don’t. Find something you enjoy. I love to swim and play tennis. I also love to go for long walks in my local park. I find few things calm my mind as well.

The most important thing is that you make exercise a habit.

If you really find yourself struggling for motivation, consider following along to an online exercise video from the comfort of your living room floor.

You can find tons of free workout videos here at: fitnessblender.com

Look after your mental health.

All of the above are intrinsically linked to your mental health; however, there are other tools worth implementing.

The main forms of personal therapy I use are meditation, yoga, and journaling. I also earmark a half-hour to talk to my wife about any concerns or feelings I have every evening without fail.

Having someone you can talk to who you can trust when shit gets serious is SO DAMN IMPORTANT.

Moving on.

Lift vs Weight

Responsibility is weight.

You cannot avoid it. You didn’t ask for this life, but here you are anyway. Now you have a fundamental responsibility to love, honour, and protect that one life.

So many struggle against their responsibilities – desperately wishing they didn’t have to deal with them. Yet, our responsibilities indirectly generate lift. The same way an aeroplane takes cargo and passengers onboard. That “weight” pays for the fuel which generates thrust and then, consequently, lift.

Now, you might think the fewer responsibilities you have, the lighter you will feel, the more able you’ll be to climb. To a certain extent, this is true. We need to be careful about how many responsibilities we choose to take on – depending on our capacity – for that reason.

It’s important to stress that if you make all of the world’s problems your own, you’ll never take off.

However, an absence of responsibility isn’t freedom. An absence of responsibility isn’t anything. It’s like an absence of weight. There’s no aeroplane in the first place. To avoid responsibility is to avoid life itself. To try to live in its absence will leave you feeling void.

The major difference between responsibility and purpose is perspective. You will always have responsibilities. Understanding how they serve your greater purpose helps you find the motivation to take them on. This is what turns your responsibilities into a source of lift.

Of course, purpose is the thing that gets you up and moving in the morning. It’s the things in your life that give you both joy and hope.

Purpose is lift.

How to Generate Lift

Remain Grounded

Wherever you are in life, it’s essential to remain grounded. The only place we live is here and now. To constantly wish you had arrived at your destination is to miss the part we call life – that would be a far greater tragedy than not making your destination. That’s why, as a mantra for life, one should always start with radical acceptance.

I like to think of radical acceptance in terms of three pillars:

The first is present moment awareness.
The second is universal compassion.
The third is gratitude.

Meditation is an excellent tool for all of the above. I also use several mindful hacks throughout the day to keep my monkey mind from getting lost in the clouds. Writing in a gratitude journal is another habit that’s worth implementing.

Without harping on for too long, I can highly recommend the following book: Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Build a Moral Compass

This is something you should prioritise long before you start setting goals. I suggest you design your own moral compass by listing out a set of values that mean the most to you and then listing those in order of personal significance.

I then suggest you think about the identity you want to form based on your set of particular values. Following that, you want to build habits that reinforce this identity. (i.e., a loving father and husband who makes time for his family every day, a person who prioritises his own health by meditating and exercising every day, a person who writes every day).

(For all things habit related, I suggest reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. You can find his blog here.)

Once you’ve done that, you can start thinking more about the destination by setting some short and long-term goals. Just keep in mind that it’s far more important to embody the person you wish to be today than it is to achieve anything in the long run.

After all, shit happens, and rarely if ever, in this life, we end up at the destination we had in mind.

Change Your Perspective

Turn your demons into angels by giving meaning to your pain.

If your battle is with mental health, then make that part of your purpose in your life. If you have suffered a major affliction, draw on that pain to help others who have suffered/are suffering similarly. I believe this is one of the most powerful ways to generate lift in life. You can apply this idea to almost all areas of your life.

Take having children as an example. They are a significant source of lift in my life, but they are also a considerable weight. I can either look at them as a weight or actively choose to take them on board – to make it my mission to help raise a generation of resilient, responsible, and virtuous children.

Need I say anymore?

Remove Unnecessary Baggage

Many of us carry baggage we really shouldn’t. Usually, that baggage is other people’s bullshit that has found its way into our minds. Once again, becoming clear about your values will help here. Know what is truly important to you and then not giving a fuck what anyone else thinks.

This is no easy battle, of course, but a great place to start is by getting a handle on your smartphone addiction. Disconnect and have a digital sabbath one day a week. This should help you gain some much-needed clarity.

I also recommend living a simple life. Be happier with less. Spend the money on a few high-quality products/hobbies that give you a considerable amount of joy instead of mindlessly consuming things you don’t need because it’s a “good deal.”

This applies to people too. Form close relationships instead of lots of superficial ones. Find the people you love and trust. Cut out the toxic individuals that aren’t serving you.

Make time for the things and people you love.

Doing the things you have to do but don’t want to makes you feel less guilty about doing what you love. To turn that on its head, doing what you love gives you the energy to do the things you have to but don’t want to.

As part of harmonious life, you must make time for the things you love. Whether that’s reading, playing video games, or socialising… Don’t neglect fun. Don’t neglect joy. Don’t neglect being silly and spontaneous. Don’t neglect your sense of adventure. Try new restaurants, dance in the rain, fart and laugh about it.

Occasionally say fuck it to all of the above and just go with the flow.

You definitely need that.

Maintaining Straight and Level

Your day-to-day journey, just like life itself, should follow a similar pattern. At first, you should apply more thrust to overcome the forces of drag and weight. You should reduce the thrust and glide gently back to earth towards the end of the day.

As for maintaining straight and level flight, the rest of the time, I don’t believe it should feel like this almighty struggle – like everything has a threat level response attached to it.

When you encounter turbulence, you shouldn’t fight it. You should take a seat, ride it out, and then gently fly your bird back to your desired track and level.

If you really do feel like you’re stalling, there is only one thing for it. You must push the nose down to regain lift. Don’t, whatever you do, keep pitching up in desperation. Heed the warning signs and let go of the controls.

The truth is maintaining balance is a state of mind. One that is firmly grounded in the present moment. It is about going with the flow and dissolving the boundaries that separate work from play, life from death, purpose from responsibility…

It’s important to have a destination in mind, but it’s equally important we don’t get hung up on it. As cliche as it is to say, life is about the journey, not the destination.

Take care of yourself today. Tackle your most pressing responsibilities today. Get rid of any unnecessary baggage. After that, learn to go with the flow and enjoy the journey.

If you can, then you really will fly free.

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing at the following:

https://pointlessoverthinking.com

https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Also on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

Why You Shouldn’t Hope for the Best

August 28, 2021August 28, 2021AP2

“Misfortune weighs most heavily on those who expect nothing but good fortune.”
– SENECA

Have you ever noticed how we’re taught that our wants and desires have everything to do with our suffering, yet we’re also taught to “live in hope”? Have you ever stopped to consider how these messages might muddy the waters?

You see it all over the blogosphere, of course. “Don’t give up,” “Hang in there,” “Never lose hope”…

But what, exactly, are we supposed to never lose hope for? A perfect body? A million dollars? For becoming a celebrity so we may be adored forever? For politicians to do as they promised – to do what’s right for our children?!

Hah!

So many talk as if hope is the panacea to life’s problems. As if hope will set us free. I wonder how many people have stopped to ask themselves whether hoping is the problem? That maybe it’s because they’re hoping that they’re suffering? I wonder how many people miss their own lives because they’re constantly hoping for something different?

I’m guessing it’s a lot.

What if you shouldn’t be hoping for something different? What if, when your survival isn’t at stake – when, at this moment, there is nothing wrong – what if hoping is the last thing you should be doing?

What if accepting life as it stands is more important than hoping?

We cannot hope the pandemic will disappear tomorrow after all, or that evil will vanquish without a fight. Of course, we must believe in our ability to prevail, but to hope for things out of our control?

Well, hello, psychological torture my old friend!

Maybe we can work towards improving our lives without feeling it needs to be? Maybe we can work in recognition that we already have everything we need? Maybe our work can be dedicated to helping others for that reason? For those who really do need to “live in hope” because their survival depends on it?

What Hope Is For

This is where I believe we need to be clear: Hope isn’t for external reality, it’s for your ability to deal with it. It’s for survival. It’s designed to lift you from the brink of destruction. When your back is against the wall and you ingest birds in both of your engines, hope gives you the fortitude to land that fucker in the Hudson.

Talking of which, when Sully Sullenberger ingested a flock of geese in both engines, the most remarkable thing about that day wasn’t that he successfully managed to ditch an aeroplane on the Hudson. (Although that was pretty damn remarkable.)

No, the most remarkable thing was his ability to rapidly come to terms with his predicament. The most remarkable thing was his ability to take stock of his situation and find the clarity needed to do his job under the most extreme circumstances.

In a TV interview where he describes the events of that day, he said he remembers the first three conscious thoughts he had vividly. The first was, “This can’t be happening.” Followed by, “This doesn’t happen to me.” Then, he said, this was followed by a dawning realisation that this flight, unlike any other flight during his 40 + career in aviation, wouldn’t end on a runway with the aircraft undamaged. He said, “I was ok with that, as long as I could solve the problem.”

Talk about radical acceptance! I don’t know about you, but it takes me more time to accept life when the alarm goes off in the morning.

A Counterintuitive Approach

Here’s the funny thing about acceptance – it provides a counterintuitive approach to hope. If you have the fortitude to do so, it prevents you from hoping for something different. To be saved by some knight in shining armour.

It means you’re left hoping for one thing and one thing alone: yourself. Your ability to deal with life as it stands. Even if that’s means you’ve just ingested birds in both of your engines!

Of course, that’s scary. Having to come to terms with the brutal facts of your reality. To understand that you and you alone are responsible for it.

That’s why most people don’t. They’re too scared to own that level of responsibility. So they distract themselves through addiction and false hope, convincing themselves that their life circumstances are not their fault and, therefore, not their responsibility.

Of course, that’s wrong. We are always responsible for things that aren’t our fault. In fact, that’s life. Life isn’t your fault, but here you are anyway. What do you want to do about it? Hope for something else?

Preparing for the Worst

Bruce Lee once said, “Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

Of course, building the strength to deal with adversity when it happens is something you can control. Whether you have an easy life or not isn’t. What hand the universe deals you is beyond your control. What he’s really saying is you should hope for your best, not the best.

How do you that?

By actively preparing yourself for the worst. By challenging yourself. By putting yourself in the dragon’s den and proving that you can. By defining yourself by your pain. There’s a reason why the proverbial kitchen sink is thrown at pilots every 3 months in the simulator. We are thrown in at the deep end and told to sink or swim. Deal with it or have your license invalidated.

In that same TV interview Sully said, that although they had never practiced a water landing in the simulator before, “Because I had learned my craft so well and because I knew my plane and my profession so intimately, I could set clear priorities. And so I chose to do only the highest priority items, and then I had the discipline to ignore everything I did not have time to do.”

What a legend.

I’ll finish with one more thought.

Acting in hope for your survival and those you love is easy. It’s necessary, so it’s easy. When you have no other choice but to act against all odds, of course, you act. It might not be easy to do, but the decision is.

The real measure of a person is how they respond to events outside of their control. When they cannot act, despite their hopes. The real measure of a person is in their ability to accept. To accept the reality of their past – to accept and embrace the demons in their closet. To accept, ultimately, their own mortality. And that of those who they love most dearly. That is true courage. That is true strength.

And it isn’t hope that will bring you peace – although it may save you. It’s acceptance that does that. That’s why, I suggest you start with radical acceptance for what is long before you start hoping. Then, and only then, if you still have the audacity to hope, you better be prepared to take action.

***

You can find more of AP2’s writing at the following:

https://pointlessoverthinking.com

https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Also on Twitter at: @AnxiousPilot

3-2-1 Mindset Mondays

August 9, 2021August 9, 2021AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to Mindset Mondays! The only weekly post that encourages you to embrace the dark side of the force…

Following a 3-2-1 approach, it contains 3 thoughts from me (that you should ignore), 2 quotes from others (that you should read), and 1 thing I’ve been reading, watching or listening to this week that has helped me grow.

As a bonus I’ve finished with 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good.

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) Acceptance is about acknowledging your demons, it’s not about letting them dictate the terms.

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2) The only thing to fear isn’t fear itself. Fearing fear is the definition of an anxiety disorder. The only thing to fear is death, because that’s what fear is designed to do – keep you alive! It’s not designed to save you from embarrassment or failure. It’s fearing our own emotions, that’s the worst thing to fear in this life. It’s fearing discomfort that will kill your quality of life.

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3) Questioning what we believe feels like we are questing the very meaning of our lives, which is difficult. However, the more you do it, the more you realise you don’t know, the more comfortable you become not knowing. It gets easier over time. That, eventually, makes you more comfortable being wrong. This in turn makes you more willing to learn.

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2 x Quotes:

“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”
– Don Marquis

“Freedom without discipline is foolish, discipline without freedom is insanity.”
– Ilona Mialik

1 x Thing:

This No Stupid Questions podcast episode: Should We Just Ignore Our Weaknesses? – with Stephen Dubner (co-author of the Freakonomics book series) and research psychologist Angela Duckworth (author of Grit). In this episode they debate whether one would play to their strengths or work on their weaknesses. Of course it’s complicated, however they did come to a conclusion I liked. You should play to your strengths, but work on your weakness within them. Well worth the listen.

1 x Joke:

Another far side comic for you all this week – I hope you enjoy!

Thanks ladies and gentlemen, I’m here all week! As always I welcome ALL thoughts on this blog. Let us know in the comments below.

PREVIOUS MONDAY POST:

Mindset Mondays – 26/07/21

3-2-1 Mindset Mondays

July 26, 2021July 26, 2021AP2

Hello lovely readers and welcome back to Mindset Mondays! The only weekly post that posts every other week…

As a bonus I’ve finished with 1 joke that’s so bad, it’s good.

Let’s begin!

3 x Thoughts:

1) Life is meaningless by design. It’s a blank canvas that you’re suppose paint meaning onto. Keep doing that and you might just create a masterpiece.

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2) An idea for reviewing goals: Everyday, review your weekly goals. Every week, review your monthly goals. Every month, review your 1 year goals. Every year, review your 5 year goals. Repeat.

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3) Don’t worry about success or fame or “making it.” The moment you do, you fail to see what success really is. I find it works the same way as happiness. The more you try to chase it, the less likely you are to find it. Live by your principles first and foremost. Concentrate on being a better person and serving a greater cause. Do that and you might just find some of this stuff people call “success.”

(click to tweet)

2 x Quotes:

“When people prattle on about needing to find their “purpose,” what they really mean is that it’s no longer clear what feels important. The question of purpose is really just a question of values.”
– Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson)

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

1 x Thing:

This Tim Ferris podcast with Dr. Andrew Huberman – A Neurobiologist on Optimizing Sleep, Enhancing Performance, Reducing Anxiety, Increasing Testosterone, and Using the Body to Control the Mind.

If you have the time this podcast is well worth a listen. I found Huberman’s knowledge about using your vision to reduce stress to be particular insightful. There’s a good reason why looking out at a vista feels calming.

If you look straight ahead into the distance while trying to expand your vision (try to notice what’s going on in your periphery), it “releases a mechanism in the brain stem involved in vigilance and arousal… You can actually turn off the stress response by changing the way that you are viewing our environment.”

For more about this practise have a read of this article: Broaden Your Vision at Music, Mind & Movement.

1 x Joke:

Another far side comic for you all this week – I hope you enjoy!

Thanks ladies and gentlemen, I’m here all week! As always I welcome ALL thoughts on this blog. Let us know in the comments below.

PREVIOUS MONDAY POST:

Mindset Mondays – 12/07/21

9 Pieces Of Indispensable Life Advice From Your Future Self

June 10, 2021February 14, 2022AP2

A couple of weeks ago I asked the readers at Pointless Overthinking what advice they would give their former selves if they could go back in time. The reason is I’m at something of a crossroads in my own life. I have a difficult decision to make and I’m not sure what my next step should be. It got me thinking, if only my future self could come back and tell me what to do.

That’s what gave me the idea. I wanted to see what everyone had to say and see if I could spot any patterns – to see if I could gain some more clarity. Thankfully loads of you responded, so I had plenty to chew on. There were some obvious patterns, but also a few pieces of seemingly contradictory advice that forced me to do a bit of deeper thinking.

From everyone’s responses, I pieced together this list of indispensable life advice. I’ll get back to the topic of my personal crossroads another day. For now, I want to share this list with all of you here on Clear Air Turbulence. Listen carefully because this one is from your future selves!

I hope you enjoy.

1. Start looking after your finances

This was one of the most obvious bits of advice that stuck out. Take care of your finances. Pay off all your debt as soon as you can. Don’t spend beyond your means. Start saving for your retirement now! Take the time to educate yourself about boring things like investing and mortgages. Like or loath it, the hard reality is financial freedom is freedom. I believe if you’re sensible – if you put a little bit aside each month and diversify your investments – you should (hopefully) be pleasantly surprised by the time you retire.

2. Take better care of your health

Looking after your health is the physical equivalent of saving for retirement. Start paying more attention to your diet today. Get outside and move today. Don’t neglect your mental health. Talk to someone if you need to. I would add, an often overlooked aspect regarding health is making sure you have some insurance because, well, shit happens! I believe the best way to prepare for life is to prepare for the worst. That means considering the implications of your own death as well. Prepare for your own funeral while making every effort to delay it.

3. Prioritise time with your family

A number of you expressed regret about not having spent more time with your children, while others expressed regret about not having made the effort to form a closer bond with their parents… My take, reading between the lines, was not to put off that difficult conversation. Don’t wait till your loved ones are on their death beds (or indeed you are) to tell them how you really feel. Make time for them, today. The other side of that awkward conversation is a closer relationship.

4. Learn to love yourself

This one came up a lot in various forms. “Stop caring what other people think”, “learn to love who you are”, “practise self-acceptance”, etc. I think this might be one of life’s most important yet difficult lessons. I believe many of us feel we’re somehow lacking as individuals. Our inability to accept causes us to metaphorically whip ourselves. Of course this doesn’t work, at least, not without killing who you really are.

We also seem to forget the curious paradox that, as Carl Rogers once said, “When I accept myself as I am, then I can change.” If you ask me, the biggest secret when it comes to self-improvement is self-acceptance. This helps you work with your emotions instead of against them. This is also what I believe it means to love yourself. You’re not trying to become something more because you feel inadequate, you’re trying to become something more because you love yourself and want to reward that person.

5. Follow your heart but don’t be reckless

This was the first piece of advice that had me scratching my head. Some of you said you wished you hadn’t been so reckless, that you’d been more pragmatic about your decision making, whereas others wished they hadn’t played it so safe – that they’d taken more chances. After giving it some thought I came to the conclusion that there’s a big difference between taking a calculated risk based on what you know your heart wants, versus simply caving into impulsivity and doing what feels good all the time. Life isn’t about simply doing what feels good, it’s about doing what you believe is right. That’s what it really means to follow your heart.

**6. Sort out your career before you have kids**

A few of you raised the point that it’s best to understand your place in the world before you bring kids into it. The younger you are, the more risks you should be taking. Don’t hesitate to change your degree or career path if you’re not enjoying the one you’re on. Better to experiment and make those changes earlier rather than later. Part of problem is this idea that one must go straight from school into the best possible university with a career plan for life already mapped out. Many of us then get “locked in” to these careers because of the debt we’ve taken on doing a degree we weren’t entirely sure about.

I often look back and wonder what the big rush was? (I’m a pilot with a history degree who is now considering a second career in psychology FYI!) Why not go out and experience the world first? Why not try travelling on a shoe string? Why not volunteer for a cause you believe in, or see what supporting yourself on a minimum wage is like (that will give you some added motivation) – and then ask yourself what you want your life to be about?

7. Don’t wait but have patience

It seems to me people either give up way too soon, or they never get started in the first place because they’re always waiting for the “perfect time.” This was reflected in what many of you said. Some of you said to get started right away, while others said to have patience – not to be be so naive and understand that is takes time to build the life you want. It reminded me of this Oprah Winfrey quote: “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” The way I see it, there are two ways to go about it. Build a business or hold a job that earns you enough money, that also gives you enough time to chase/do what you love on the side, or learn to earn enough money doing what you love. Either way, don’t wait to chase your dreams, but understand there’s a mountain you have to climb first.

8. Believe in yourself

This brings me nicely to the next piece of advice that so many of you gave. Believe in yourself. Back yourself to stand up for what you believe is right. Believe in your capacity to persevere in face of adversity. It’s important to remember that hope is for you, for your ability to deal with reality – not for reality itself. To quote my childhood hero Bruce Lee, “Do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” Prepare for the worst while believing in your capacity to deal with it.

9. Lighten up

Now that I’ve relayed you with a very serious list of life lessons that you’ve all undoubtably failed to follow, let me finish this final piece of advice you gave – lighten up! Life is serious enough without us adding to it. You could spend your whole life planning for the perfect retirement only to get hit by a bus crossing the road. It’s important to prepare for the future, but not at the complete expense of today. Remember to laugh and be silly. Remain curious and let your inner child have a say. Certainly don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re still standing aren’t you? That, at least, is something worth smiling about.

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You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://pointlessoverthinking.com

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