Pilot or Passenger?

I’m sure like me there are some days when you wish you were the pilot and other days the passenger.

I’m not talking about taking a trip on a plane to some exotic faraway place for some respite to get away from it all, although I’m sure that’s often on your minds! Instead I’m talking about those days when we wish we could sit back and let life just go by instead of having to be in control of our lives to manage our time as best we can.

I often reflect on what we say about how fast holidays go and yet the week at ‘work’ can sometimes drag – well why is this? The time is the same whether it’s a week day or a weekend, a holiday or a work day. It’s no surprise to us that time can be our master or our slave, we can manage it or let it manage us.

Where would you rather be and what would you rather do? Be the pilot and be in control of managing your time, or be the passenger and let time whiz past us like the clouds?

As the quote by Michael Attshuler says, “The bad news is time flies – the good news is you’re the pilot”.

Here are 3 questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you procrastinate?

2. Are you often ‘chasing your tail’?

3. Do you often set unrealistic deadlines?

Here are 5 tips to getting to grips with being the pilot rather than the passenger:

1. Move from being a ‘yes’ person to a ‘no’ person by thinking before you say ‘yes’ and learning to say a positive ‘no’

2. Deal with your own priorities rather than reacting to other people’s seemingly ‘urgent’ demands

3. Do those tasks you hate the most first thing in the morning and those you like the most the last thing in the day

4. Give yourself a ‘treat’ every day to reward yourself for a job well done, rather than beating yourself up for unfinished business

5. Plan to be organised by using positive self-talk to keep yourself upbeat and focused