In my latest series of neurotic experiments..I tried this thing in 2015 to fix some of my biggest problems and here are the results.

But first, let me tell you a story…

In 1979, on the promise of a unique flight experience, 257 people left New Zealand to visit the beautiful sights of Antarctica. Unbeknownst to the pilots, the flight coordinates of the flight path were miscalibrated by two degrees. This seemingly small error would place the plane about 28 km off course, straight in the path of Mount Erebus, a 12000 ft high active volcano on the Antarctic Ross Island. Although both Captain Jim Collins and First Officer Greg Cassin were experienced pilots, neither of them had flown in Antarctica prior to this flight. As they flew over the landscape — a white blend of snow and ice — the pilots took the aircraft closer to the ground to give their passengers a better view. By the time the ground proximity warning system alarm went off, it was too late for the aircraft to take evasive action and it crashed into the flank of Mount Erebus, killing everyone on board. The grisly accident became known as the Mount Erebus disaster, and it was at the time the fourth largest air disaster in history.

A huge impact caused by a small deviation. In fact, there’s a heuristic used in air navigation called the 1 in 60 rule which states that every 1 degree off course will result in 1 mile off course for every 60 miles.

To put its implications into perspective,

For every degree you fly off course, you will miss your target by 92 feet for every mile that you fly.

For every 60 miles you fly, you will miss your target by one mile.

Flying around the equator will land you almost 500 miles off target…which means that if you had intended to fly to Berlin you’d land in Stockholm instead!

A mere one-degree error in course makes a huge difference over time.

@_@ ?

The logic is analogous to our lives; each of us is striving towards a destination and we want to land at our destination as accurately as possible. The last thing we want is not realizing we’ve gone off course until it’s too late. While pilots may use computer navigational systems onboard to guide their bearings, but we too have a navigational system, a much more powerful one in fact — our brain.

However, unlike the plane’s computer which is often programmed with a singular focus — getting to one destination, our journeys tend to be a little more multidimensional and complicated. Most of us are simultaneously pursuing a variety of goals spread across different areas of our lives — relationships, work, personal development, pleasure — and it’s a constant juggling act between these while we strive towards our ultimate vision.

So the big question is: how do we ensure that we stay on course towards our destination?

Let’s begin with something that should be familiar to most of you — New Year’s Resolutions, a topic which suffers from chronic bad reputation.