Mind Pilot – Take Self Control

November 25, 2009

A few thoughts from Tony Robbins

Whenever I find myself veering off course, Tony Robbins books are often a good way to get back on track, and as someone who doesn’t normally like wading through chunky volumes of text, I’d have to recommend ‘Giant Steps’, which breaks everything down into simple postcard sized notes, designed to have once each day of the year. Of course, I’ll never find myself sticking to such a precise daily routine, but I think he makes a very good point about the need to read something positive for half an hour each day in order to stay mentally sharp.

The concept of ‘mood food’ is something I have been well aware of for while, but haven’t always indulged in, but the key point being that the mind needs nourishment just as much as the body. I’ve already got my work pretty well cut out over the next few weeks, so to fit in half an hour of reading would initially seem like a luxury, until it is broken down into three quick chunks of 10 minutes at the start of each day, over lunch and in the evening.

But even if you don’t like reading, good music can elevate the mood even quicker than text, and any music has to be better than the constant stream of bad news which so many news stations like to broadcast.

November 2, 2009

Taking a short train ride – just for the hell of it

Today, I walked to the market to get some lunch. It is about a 15 minute walk, but on the way back, I just couldn’t be bothered. There are a couple of small variations in the route I can take between my house and Coventry city centre, but let’s face it, it’s not like walking down the Champs Elysees!

So I decided I’d head towards the station, and catch the train one stop to Canley. If you are a ‘normal’ walker just wanting to get from A to B, then nothing could be more pointless! Aside from ‘wasting’ money on a train ticket (well, actually not much more than jumping on the bus), and waiting for the train (a big five minutes, I wouldn’t have bothered if one wasn’t due), the train doesn’t actually get you any closer to my house. I live roughly the same distance from Coventry and Canley stations.

So why take the train at all? Shouldn’t I just go to London, and take the District Line to Barking? Well actually, no. To my mindset, this seemingly pointless journey made perfect sense. Firstly, it gave me somewhere to finish my lunch – I didn’t want to walk with it, and as someone who spends hours in front of a computer, I like to get out when I can. But more important than that (and no Tom-Tom, dick or Harry will ever tell you this), it is quite simply a much nicer walk. So instead of 15 minutes of boredom, I had 15 minutes of walking through the park.

Not to mention the fact that I am a total anorak for trains, but I still didn’t get my question answered about the ‘Class 351/2’s’ – that’s for another blog at another time – and it really isn’t that geeky, there is a genuine reason for wanting to know. I’m sure you can’t wait to find out!

Now back to work.

Using this blog to stay with it

Right, it has been a few months of chaos, and to be honest, a pretty lousy fortnight preceeding this one. But I’m hoping I can kick-start this blog and get back to the original reason for setting it up. The original idea for ‘Mind Pilot’ is probably around 3 years old, but I have always tried to find ways of managing my weekly fluctuations in mood and concentration levels.

The analogy with flying comes from the fact that I run an aviation related travel website, so there was a simple analogy for dividing the day up into 7 different phases, based around preparing for a flight, taking off, crusing and then landing safely at the end. This was all nice in theory, but let’s just say there’s been some turbulence in the meantime, some of it being far more severe than I was ever expecting.

But now, things are starting to head back on an even keel (sorry, should be sticking to flying rather than nautical metaphors, but sod it, this is a blog not a novel), and I want to really even it all out and try and cruise as smoothly as possible. Yet just as things seem to get back in place, something breaks, and I’m back to the start – or at least I am undoing a lot of the progress.

So the main idea of having this blog has to be to create some form of online interaction, where I can stay motivated enough to keep a focus. One way of doing this is to post open comments about the feelings I go through, and to invite other people to share their experiences. I hope to get enough of a following to give me something to log back into each day, so please stick around.

Sorry, but this blog has nothing to do with flying or pilots

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:50 am

Sorry to any social networkers or ad clickers who are looking for a website to do with aviation, or learning how to be an airline pilot. I’m afraid that’s just not what this site is about, but the search robots which govern the internet just don’t seem to be smart enough yet to work that one out.

What this site IS about is learning, or at least trying to control, a much tougher beast – the human mind. If that is of interest, I hope you can stick around. If not, have a good one.

Mind Pilot is back – at last

Wow, has it really been that long? I last posted back in March, then was trying to upgrade the blog template, and bang! Something went wrong with the site design, then I hit a bit more mental ‘turbulence’, and here I am, winter is coming, and I need to get my mojo back!

So I hope to do a bit of tidying up, and then get back into the swing of things over the next few weeks. Watch this space!

I’m sorry that this site design sucks!

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:18 am

Please bear with me, I’ve just brought Mind Pilot back online, and it is going tot ake me a few more weeks to do some tidying up, make this site look half decent, and get back moving again.

I promise it will be worth the wait!

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