The mental side of flying is an area not talked about very much. Flight schools, instructors and operators can go on at length about theories, procedures and techniques but barely touch upon the mental side.
When I was younger and raced karts and cars competitively, I came across a book called “Performance Thinking” by sports psychologist Dr. Jacques Dallaire.
I found the teachings of this book to be especially valuable during my advanced flight training phases, such as the IR, CPL, MCC course and Type Rating.
I bought this book mainly for motorsports and now feel that the ideas and lessons are directly applicable to flying as well. There are plenty of examples in this book from various professions, like business executives, race team crews and athletes.
I’ve started reading it again because the mental side constantly needs work. It never ends.
So whether things are going smoothly or you’re in a bit of a rut (which will likely happen), then maybe what this book has to share can help you push through.
The Simple Formula
“A” x “B” = Results
Basically, in short, the variable “A” is your performance, the part that you’re in control of, and “B” are all the external factors.
Take a sales representative who improved their pitch, contacted more prospects, and made more follow-up calls (variable A), and yet saw their results get worse for that month or period. He might think he didn’t do a great job, and his boss might think the same.
However, during the same period, the company he worked for was advertising to a less than ideal audience (variable B), which generated hardly any qualified leads.
Despite a strong performance (A), all the factors outside his control (B) lead to less than ideal results, which could affect his future performance.
In aviation and especially during flight training, there is a wide variety of external factors you can face, like busy airspace, subpar air traffic control, unfamiliar aircraft, a long break from flying because of aircraft unavailability, aircraft technical failures and tough examiners.
All these are things I’ve faced and had to deal with.
Take Control of the “A”, with your A-game
The A variable is what you can focus on, and while results can affect us in our lives and careers, getting the best results involves maximizing our personal performance.
This sounds stupidly simple, but it’s easy to see how results, as a result of making a mistake, or simply not knowing something, can lead to an undesired “result” and affect our mindset, diminish our performance (A), and ultimately affect our results even more.
Plan to Deal With The Various “B” Factors
You won’t ever be able to plan for and foresee all the various external factors you’ll encounter.
For exampl, during a Type Rating simulator session, you will likely encounter a wide variety of failures for the first time. If you were to read through your aircraft manual’s Abnormal and Emergency Procedures, you will undoubtedly prepare yourself better. This again comes back to working on the “A” variable.
Focus on Execution, Not Results
In a given moment, if you don’t give your best effort, the results will be less than what they could have been.
So no matter how well (or badly) things have been going, our focus can’t be on the results, but on the very action we need to do then and there.
During flight training and now during my real-world line flights, I always try to ask myself, “What now?” and “What next?” This keeps me in the moment and in turn improves performance, regardless of what happened prior, like any errors, or remarks from the instructor. Focusing on the past or the future “what ifs?” only detracts from doing the correct actions now.
Strategies to Implement
This is a highly simplified summary of the book Performance Thinking and just scratches the surface. The author, Dr. Jacques Dallaire, goes into various topics like self-sabotage, concentration, imagery and more.
I recommend reading the book and most importantly, applying the strategies. They will undoubtedly help you in your flight training and career down the line.
The book is available at www.performanceprime.com as well as on the Amazon book store in Kindle and paperback formats.