Landing A Plane Taught Me About Achieving Goals

Have you ever piloted a small plane? If you’re a seasoned pilot you may think what happened to me isn’t a story compelling enough to be worth writing. But, it took me 29 attempts to finally land a plane safely. It taught me how to achieve any goal I set in my mind.

There’s a lesson to be learned here for anyone desiring to achieve a goal they think they can’t reach.

In my mid 20’s I attended a flight school in Arizona. I was making my way through ground school and simulator work. Everything was going great.

Then came the time for flying the real thing. The aircraft of choice was called the “Grumman Tiger.” It had pretty good power, the wings were below, and it had a canopy that slid back and forth instead of a door.

The Tiger could carry up to four people, including the pilot.

My goal was to be a bush pilot or a missionary pilot eventually. The instructor was a former Navy pilot and knew his stuff. He told me he’d teach me how to land it on a dime. And he kept his promise.

“If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that hold you down.” Unknown Share on X

Taking Off Is Easy

As any pilot will tell you, taking off is effortless. The plane is designed to fly, and it does it very well. Keeping it in the air is easy, too.

[Effective, professional pilots always have a clear plan of where they’re going before they take off. It’s called a ‘Flight Plan.” When you’re intentionally creating the life that you really want it’s important to have a “Life Plan.”

The first, important step in a Life Plan is to form a clear Vision Statement of what you want it to look like. For an easy to follow, step-by-step Personal Vision Worksheet click HERE. It’s free and can save you the time and money of the first few visits with a coach.]

Landing, on the other hand, is a very different story. As those same pilots will tell you, landing a plane is the most dangerous part of flying. There are stories of veteran pilots who’ve flown thousands of hours dying after a simple mistake during a routine landing.

My instructor and I took off and made several trips around the airport over several days. Each time I’d come in for a landing I’d either come in too fast, or too slow, or bounce it off the runway. He’d have to grab the controls and save our lives once again.

He never gave up on me.

He told me to keep practicing the goal in my mind. I was to keep visualizing it just the way it was supposed to be. You can learn more about why he recommended visualization in an earlier blog article I wrote called, “Pink Elephants and White Tigers®-Three Secrets Of How Your Mind Works.”

In my spare bedroom, I set up a crude simulator at my desk. Using my checklist, I practiced over and over until it etched into my memory. When I was away from my cheap-o simulator, I would mentally rehearse having a perfect landing.

It all came together eventually. As you might expect, I counted each landing. On the 29th landing, I felt myself become completely calm. As I reached about 20 feet off of the runway, I confidently rotated the aircraft and “greased it on.”

There was not the slightest sense of touching the runway. We were just there. As I slowed to taxi, I looked over at the instructor. He was grinning from ear-to-ear so much I thought his face would break!

He told me to taxi over and park the plane, which I did with no problem.

“Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival.”  Dr. Steve Maraboli Share on X

As I began to go through the checklist to shut down, he said for me not to shut it down. He slid the canopy back, climbed out, and said, “OK. It’s all yours. See you in a few minutes.”

Uh. Excuse me?

“You didn’t give me six months to prepare!”

Of course, I taxied back to the head of the runway, went through my run-up, received tower clearance and took off. If you don’t think I was nervous you gotta nother thing coming.

I decided to imagine that my instructor was still with me. That helped. But, what I noticed was that I already knew what to do automatically.

The plane pretty much knew what to do, too. I climbed to the correct pattern altitude, made all of my turns, turned approach to final, brought it on in and greased it on again!

Then, I taxied it back to the parking area, shut everything down and exited the aircraft. As I walked into the instructor area, I saw my instructor open his drawer and pull out a pair of scissors. He proceeded to cut the back of my shirt off!

It turns out that it was a tradition to do that after a pilot’s first solo flight! It was my favorite shirt, too. He documented the event in permanent marker on the back of my shirt. Good thing it wasn’t during the winter.

That shirt has been with me everywhere I’ve lived since then. What I went through for that first solo flight set the tempo for me to achieve many great things in my life.

Keep Moving Forward

Hang in there and move forward one step at a time. Don’t let failures hold you back. Create a simulator in your mind for how you want it to be and replay it over and over.

What I went through for that first solo flight set the tempo for me to achieve many great things in my life. Share on X

Creating a vision for how you want it to be is crucial to achieving the goal of having a life worth living. The more clear the vision the more potent the outcome. Getting clarity is the first order of business in a coaching relationship.

How’d you like to get a head start on that for free? I’ve made it as simple for you as I know how in this free PDF Worksheet called the, “Personal Vision Statement Worksheet.”

You’ll get out of it what you put into it. The first time I did this was in 2004 and it took me six weeks. Boy was I unclear.

Once I became clear things moved quickly. My life began to take on the shape of what I’d visioned. It’s as easy for me now as flying a plane.

Get your Life Plan underway by clicking HERE to get started achieving any goal. Let me know what you think.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford Share on X

John Mason-johnmasoncoach100@gmail.com