Part 4- Make your mind your best friend

When faced with rejections or setbacks, it is easy to lose motivation and fall into a low mood. The following are healthy habits to adopt and words of encouragement to remember when going through a tough time during your training/career.

Actions to add to your daily routine

Reflection & Setting intentions

Before going to sleep, reflect on the day you had – what brought you joy and what went well. Set an intention for the next day and write it down in your journal. Then, the morning after, remind yourself of your intention for the day.

Morning routine

Before going to school or work, take some time for yourself in the mornings and follow a mindful morning routine. In his lecture on ‘How to balance success with purpose’, UK-based spiritual monk HH SB Keshava Swami Maharaj describes an ideal morning routine comprising the following four activities: movement, meditation, reading, and reflection (writing).

Meditation

Meditating can help you relax and be more in tune with your body, giving enhanced focus and productivity. It’s something I am making a part of my daily routine, like brushing my teeth. If you find it difficult to sit in complete silence, guided meditations are a great place to start. There are many online, and there are short 5-minute versions for days when you don’t have much time.

Affirmational reminders

You can use your phone to set reminders that work as affirmations. These can be anything that makes you feel good and motivated. For example, I use the quote: ‘You don’t have to be brave, you just have to act brave.’

A pep talk, from me to you

Focus more on yourself and less on others

You might look around and feel like everyone is doing well, apart from you. But you don’t know everything about everyone, and everyone has their own learning curve. Just focus on improving yourself and becoming a better version of yourself for every flight/sim session, while remembering that the learning curve is not linear, and you will have some bad days.

Talk to yourself with kindness

The way you talk to yourself is powerful - it can shift you from a path of failure to a path of success (or vice versa). For example, suppose you studied for 1 hour instead of the planned 1.5 hours because you were feeling unwell. Instead of beating yourself up by saying ‘what a shame I only studied for an hour today’, change that thought to ‘I’m so glad I showed up for myself and my dreams today, even when I didn’t feel my best’. This will put a smile on your face and make you more likely to go back to studying if you end a session feeling good. It’s as simple as this because we chase things that make us feel good!

It is okay to doubt yourself

It is okay to doubt yourself or question your timeline, and to maybe even get a bit lost in the middle of it all. There is no shame in not feeling good enough. Just remember that the ATPL programme is meant to be challenging and to shape you into the best version of yourself. As you progress in your training and career, you will become more competent and automatically feel more confident.

Final words

I hope you enjoyed this series, based on what I have learned on my aviation journey, and found it informative and inspiring. The majority of the stories and examples come from my personal experiences, so I hope the tips and advice I shared are useful to you, too. Finally, I would like to remind you to enjoy your aviation journey – it is special, beautiful, and unique just like you.

To stay in touch, my social media account is: flyhightonewheights