Brain training – staying focused

“Be not afraid of moving slowly, only of standing still”

It's hard to remain focused when you don't see results fast. You feel demotivated and doubt (lethally) starts to seep in. This is where you have to break the habit of regress and do two things – use your mental strength to push yourself forward. Another words, use determination and self motivation, and two, have a back up plan(s).

It's a new year, so I'm first going to talk a little about resolutions. I was reminded the other day by a friend, about new year resolutions. I stopped thinking about these years ago, and the reason for it is, it is a tradition that sets individuals up for failure. The other day on the radio, a DJ said I've had this resolution for the last 4 years, so I'm just going to keep it the same this year.” After hearing this, all I could think of was, well, expletives. Here's this DJ, who on air, has just announced to all listeners what a failure he is because he has had to repeat a resolution for 5 consecutive years. I'll let you digest that statement for a minute....

This DJ, like many others, has the resolution of losing weight. If after a year you have managed to lose and maintain that weight, then it is no longer a resolution, but a (healthy) habit and lifestyle choice. And this is the same with any goal you set. If you complete it then great, and you grow from there. If you do not, then you need to ask yourself why. From this DJ's story you can take away two main lessons – one, if you're going to make a change, make it a commitment and invest in this change, otherwise don't bother as you're only setting yourself up for failure. Two, change the way you think to be more positive. Instead of focusing on what you are giving up (negative), think of what this new habit will bring to you (positive). Set realistic targets to gauge how well you are progressing in reaching your goal, and focus on the positives, including positive words of encouragement.

To clarify, I have assumed that each person will choose a positive goal or resolution to change to, otherwise I'm seriously questioning your mental health. And that I am not against New Year Resolutions. What I am saying is, whatever is your goal, you have to be mentally prepared and invested in it. If you feel your mentally ready over the January New Year Resolution period then that's great, but don't commit to something when you're not mentally ready to do as this will just add another hurdle to an already (seemingly) distant goal. Life is hard enough, why make it even harder on yourself!?

Along with learning to self motivate, I find it really helpful to have the right circle of people around you. Surround yourself with those who you know won't play sabotage, someone you can go to for mental strengthening, and who you can trust will talk sense into you when you're feeling low. This can be one, or many people, it really depends on what you need.

For me currently, I have been struggling with keeping focus with this 'becoming a commerical pilot' goal. I attribute this to a few main things, lack of apparent progress as I'm still sitting at home with life on hold until my next move is confirmed. In this case, whether I will be accepted into flight school. Another is, though I am slowly brushing up on my maths, memory and motor skills, being unemployed is making me bored, and so I have to much unused energy at the end of the day. This then messes with your internal clock and restless nights begin. Because I don't see sweeping changing results, I feel very much stuck up to my knees in a puddle of mud.

Feeling a little depleated, I went swimming last night, and by the end of it I realised I was an idiot. I had asked a friend who used to be a competition swimmer to teach me to swim properly exactly a month ago today. The reason for this is because while I was researching the role of commercial pilot, I found that there is a requirement that a pilot must be able to swim 50m. Why 50 I could not find out, and will most certainly ask when I get to that stage of testing. No problem, I can swim 50m. Heck I used to swim all the time as a child. In fact it was a good nanny growing up, and in high school I swam every week as part of our physical education class. Despite that, I never considered myself a very good swimmer. I found out just how pathetic I was in December 2015 as I failed the first basic in swimming – keeping your fingers closed tight together. No wonder I would get washed away so easily in open water. Next I was drilled into keeping my legs straight when I was kicking the front crawl. I learnt about streamlining, how I should be creating an S-shape with each arm as I rotate them under the water, and how yes I should still be breathing through the entire swim. So breathe in oxygen followed by breathing out underwater. Stroke, repeat, breathe. For those who are not competition swimmers, when you are doing the front crawl arm stroke, it is not purely a circular rotation in the arms, you need to add an extra motion to create more resistance to push you further forward. After my first 30 minute session my abs were groaning from the workout, created from just keeping my legs straight! My lungs were burning as I learnt to breathe properly instead of holding my breath, and my arms were screaming as I'm not used to using so much upper body strength. As such I had very little of that!

Three weeks later I was no longer rocking side to side and swimming like a sinking leaky ship with far too many holes in my technique. In fact now I am learning to tumble turn, and within the next couple weeks, learn to also dive. From memory I could only belly flop in the past, so not looking forward to the pain, but excited by the challenge.

At the start of yesterday's 45 minute swim session, I swam four lengths non stop with tumble turns. I did it again at the end of the session. At this point you might wonder why my swim sessions are so short. Well, I use my local community pools, which are part of the local community schools. As I can only swim by their 'open to public' timetables, my session time is limited by this. Luckily though, I have two schools to choose from, and though sessions are short, I make good use of them. Another plus is, it's cheap to swim in these pools at £2.30 for a 45-1hour session, and half that price for a 30 minute session. If only rock climbing was this cheap also! One school has a pool which is 20m long, and the other is 25m long. And so yesterday, as I completed my second four length non stop swim at the end of the session, I was satisfied that I can swim 80m non stop with ease. As I got out of the pool, like a tidal wave hitting the coast, I realised that I am actually in the longer 25m pool, and so have actually just swam 100m. I was so excited, and in a bit of a shock. Next target, 150m non stop!

So actually, taking that moment to take stock of what has been accomplished so far, I'm actually doing well, and is actually still moving forward towards my goal to becoming a commerical pilot. And so with that I realised I was being an idiot. Ok Izzy, keep focused.