CAREER SUCCESS
Balancing Home Life With Your Career
For most people, being an aircraft mechanic isn’t just a job — it’s a career. For others, it’s their entire life
and what they’ve wanted to do since they were young. It’s also what generates income, pays the bills, puts food on the table, and makes life more comfortable. If we lose that stream of revenue, our life becomes a lot more stress- ful and chaotic. We might start regretting the decisions that led up to us losing that job. The best way to not lose a job as an aircraft mechanic is
to prepare, think ahead and make plans to maximize our chances of keeping it. A few smart moves and small tweaks to our lives outside of work can make a huge difference. Most of us understand the basic level of keeping our job
— showing up on time, doing our job right, not missing days, etc. However, many of us never think about designing our home life so it supports our career as an aircraft mechanic rather than getting in the way and creating hardship and friction. If we want to multiply our chances of being certain
we’ll have our job for a long time to come, our home life cannot get in the way of us being aircraft mechanics. Our home lives need to work hand in hand with our careers. We cannot live a double life because it will always catch up to us and drag us down. The top priorities in our minds should be keeping our
jobs, showing up on time, and being able to physically be present at work. We can’t think of it as just “another job.” That mindset causes us to drop our guard and relax a bit too much. Before we know it, we’re becoming complacent, showing up late, not performing as well and missing work.
Find the Right Balance Spending time with our family, spouse and kids is important and should always be high on our list of priorities, but it’s important to be smart and balanced about it as well. Having an awesome home life isn’t going to pay the bills and keep food on the table. We can’t bite the hand that feeds us. If we need to wake up at 3:30 a.m. to be to work at 5:00 a.m., it’s not wise to stay up watching television with our spouse until 11:00 p.m. every night. That poor decision is going to catch up to us and the lack of sleep will affect our mind, body and performance, and the stability of our job. We should do our best to get at least seven to nine
hours of sleep if we need to work the next day. If we’re only sleeping four to six hours nightly, we’re ruining our
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com June | July 2016
Marc Summers | Contributing Author
health, taking years off of our lives, making our jobs harder and messing with our efficiency. That extra two hours of sleep every night makes all the difference in the world. Studies indicate that the most successful people in any industry or career make it a priority to get enough sleep each night. We need to figure out what causes us to lose sleep, plan
what we’re going to do to correct the situation, and then take the appropriate steps in the right direction to fix our sleep schedule and develop better sleeping habits. If something or someone in our household is keeping
you from going to sleep on time or preventing you from sleeping, do your best to correct the situation and get it under control. That person or thing is not going to pay your bills if we lose your job. If we’re the head of our household, everyone under
our roof should understand, respect and support our work schedule. They should work with us and not against us. A few years back, a girlfriend I had didn’t respect and
support my work schedule. I needed to turn my phone off at night so I wouldn’t be woken up by her calling and texting. She didn’t like it very much, but she wasn’t going to pay my bills if I lost my job. A stressful environment at home is also going to hinder our performance and ability to do our job. Our home should be a place where we can go to relax, recharge and unwind. It shouldn’t be a war zone with tons of fighting, stress and chaos. We will not be able to survive and thrive in aviation when we’re living in a hostile environment and it’s draining the life and happiness from us. Whether it’s a toxic relationship, marriage, or we’re just living with the wrong people, we should do whatever is necessary to prevent it from interfering with our jobs as an aircraft mechanics. Balance is also important with other habits at home.
If you like to drink, be smart about it. Waking up on the floor with a bottle in your hand when it’s time to go to work isn’t the best way to start off your day. You’re not going to fire on all cylinders. Doing “things” that affect your mind, focus, energy, balance and cognitive function will only get you in trouble and also be an obstacle to you doing your job. If your habits and hobbies are getting in the way of you doing your job and doing it well, they have to either go or be put on hold until you have your days off.
Think ahead Last, a little planning, preparation and being smart works in your favor. Try to handle anything that can take up your
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