Unusual Attitudes

An important part of learning to fly is learning to deal with "unusual attitudes".   You're flying along on a nice day, and look down at the map for just a moment, and when you look up again you find the horizon is in a funny place.   Or perhaps there is no horizon, only blue sky.   Or perhaps there is no sky at all - maybe the ground is filling the windscreen.   No matter what the cause, as the pilot-in-command, you must deal with the situation.

I remember a flight lesson from long ago where, taking off from an icy runway, the plane started to drift towards the snow bank along the side of the runway.   The flight instructor asked what I was doing, and I replied the plane was drifting over because of the ice.   He corrected me by saying that it was I who was allowing the plane to drift.  This was an epiphany not just as it related to taking off that day, but also as it related to my career and my personal life.

Too often, we find ourselves in professional situations which can seem overwhelming - dealing with an overbearing co-worker, trying to meet a tight deadline while dealing with unexpected technical challenges, and so on.   A persistent temptation is to simply go through the normal motions and hope things take care of themselves; we've all been there at some point in our career.

No matter what the situation, keep applying corrective inputs.   They may not have any perceptible immediate impact, but over time they improve the situation.   Will it guarantee a successful outcome?  No, of course not - but it will guarantee that the situation will not be as bad as it would have been had no corrective action been taken.

"Stay with it" is a common admonishment for student pilots.   How do you encourage yourself and others to "stay with it" and see a challenge through to completion?