Motivation!

 

Do you need some extra boost for your motivation?

 

This time I am going to talk about motivation. I think that everyone is affected by the fact that your motivation is going up and down. In some cases the motivation level get so low that some pilots quit the hobby. So no matter if you are a true competition pilot taking care of your carrier and the results or just a Sunday sport pilot enjoying the hobby it is important to keep you motivation on top. I guess most pilots do not reflects over these kinds of issues and just tags along. But for me it is really different. I have a plan. I well thought out plan about how I can avoid to be sick of flying or lacking hunger to progress my flying skills. It is truly a big challenge! But, nowadays I am more confident with myself and I am able to handle periods with crashes without feeling too bad about the whole thing. So what are my tricks?

 

First of all I had to face the fact that if I crash I can´t blame anybody else, not products or situations. My father once said to me that if you want to be a good mechanic you have to live by the expression “always blame yourself first”.  If you crash your helicopter or something brakes you have to look into all aspects and think of if there could have been anything you could have done to prevent the situation. But if you examine yourself and look back at your crashes, I guess there is a logical reason for most of them. To me this is a keystone. And it also makes it easier to learn from mishaps. Don´t blame “bad luck” or the products you use. Most of the time it is all about yourself. And if you look at your friends and fellow pilots you can easily see who is crashing often and always seems to wrench and fix something. It is the same persons claiming bad luck. The one´s understanding the meaning of being completely responsible of your aircrafts time in the air are the one´s developing high level mechanical skills. And another tip to avoid crashes and mechanical hassle is to listens to the advices you get. Don´t take it as criticism. If a friend of your sees something on your bird that could have been fixed in another, maybe better, way it´s properly good to take his view on the subject as constructive criticism.

It is not just about keeping your helicopters airborne. I think everybody, or at least most of the folks in the hobby, wants to be a pilot who progresses and learn new things. Some pilots, like me, see this as an essential part. Somebody else may don´t care about it at all, or at least don´t see it as a necessary thing. If you are in this circus because you like to order new things, or take a cup of coffee at the field, or just talk about nothing for hours my next advice may not change your level of motivation. But if you see a relationship between your motivation and your level of flying I might got some hints. And these tips are highly subjective so what works for me may not work for you. Too me, it is all about flying at the right amount. Not too much, and not too little. And also being able to tell when it´s is time to just stop flying. Some days the level of concentration is just not where it supposed to be. And when I notice I do a lot of stupid mistakes I rather stop flying and chill out for the rest of the day. It is better to face the fact this was not the day to fly then continue to fly and crash or do five flights which all was crappy. I for me it is important to do a good flight, or have good day, after something did not turn out as I wanted. If I do an auto which included a really bad landing, I just spool it up and tries again until I make it. If I have a bad day when all flying feels out of shape I tries to be back out there as soon as possible to have a good day. My goal is to have a good day, a new trick, a great moment of flying as my most recent memory. If a good memory is the latest it is much easier to keep the motivation. Forget about the ditched auto, the ugly tictoc or the moment when you totally lost control of your helicopter. If you bring five fully charged packs to the field and during your forth flight you did all these great moves which you feel really good about, skip the last flight and try to keep the smile on your face as long as possible Try to remember the good moments!

So to summarizing my text above. Do not consider luck the main factor of your crashes. Fly as much as you like but not too often, you have to be hungry for more. Try to keep a good memory as the latest one. It is basically not harder than that. Hope this was a little bit of help when it comes to the task of keeping the motivation on top!