Turbulence? Buckle up!

While on a flight just recently, I listened to the dreaded announcement from the captain, “Ladies and gentlemen, this your captain speaking. We are experiencing some turbulence. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts” No matter how many times one has flown, this is not an announcement you want to hear. And as someone who has flown the skies many times before, this still makes me anxious hearing it.

When it comes to flying, no two (2) experiences are the same and a lot of life lessons can be drawn from this experience.

Some routes are enjoyable and calm while others have extreme turbulence. In many ways, we have no control of the environment that we operate. Some environments are calm and others turbulent. The important thing is to focus on the destination and not allow the turbulence to distract us. Can you imagine the possibility of getting off the flight when the captain announced the turbulence? No, the logical thing to do is to buckle up and prepare to adapt to the flight’s external factors.

Similarly, we can compare this to our goals. Whenever we encounter turbulence in the journey of life, be it a sickness, lack of finances, challenging work environment or whatever the case may be, a lot of us tend to abandon our goals and put our focus on those challenges, bemoaning them instead. This should not be the case; rather we should ‘fasten our seatbelts’ ready to attack the challenges until we get past the turbulence.

And when the turbulence passes, the plane will eventually get to its cruising altitude. Here autopilot does come in and while this stage may seem straightforward, a lot of precaution must be taken to ensure the plane is operating at its optimum.

This stage can easily be likened to the habits and systems we have put in place to enable us progress towards our goals. It takes intention and discipline to build habits and these habits can either propel us towards or derail us further away from our goals or dreams.

Finally, to the beginning of any journey.

Before you get onto any plane, the first step requires that we book the tickets to the desired destination. Some destinations will require connecting flights and to really get to where you need to be, you will still plan for another means of transport (perhaps a train or taxi) to get you from the destined airport to the desired end point. This is very much how we should follow through on our dreams and goals. To reach to our desired destination, we must adopt different strategies depending on what is working. A scenario likened to booking an appropriate flight and using the supporting mechanisms available such as the connecting flights and taxis to reach to the hotel.

Many of us begin our journey with our goals in mind and fail to complete them for one reason or another. Would you really abandon your journey midway just because of an issue along the route? It is impossible, right?

Why then do we manage our goals so causally? I highly recommend the book by Jon Acuff, titled Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done which speaks to the need of completing what we start.

What other lessons can we draw from this experience?

I would love to hear from you. What have you observed lately?