How to get off autopilot and start intentionally changing your life
Many of us live most of our lives on autopilot, performing routine tasks without much thought effort. This is normal because, in this way, the brain optimizes its resources not to overexert itself unnecessarily where it is not required.
Problems begin when you’re living on autopilot all the time, like in the movie “Click: With the Remote Control Through Life”, where the main character used a device to rewind time years in advance, and then discovered that all this time he was living like a robot, acting according to a certain program.
So if you don’t want to become a kind of robot, you need to stop living on autopilot and start shaping your life consciously. By having clear intentions, making purposeful choices to build your future, you can take control of your life and begin to adjust the world to you, rather than adjusting it to you. Here are a few things you need to do to stop living on autopilot.
Make a mental picture of your priorities
If you simply see your objectives in your head, it’s quite simple to get sidetracked from them and fail to realize them. So attempt to arrange your ideas, put them into a logical order, and write them down on anything from paper to your phone’s notes.
The important thing is that you know what you should aim towards and what should occupy your mind. If you don’t do this, you’re likely to slip into procrastination, forget about your objectives, and continue to live your life on autopilot.
Develop your awareness and mindfulness
People who live on autopilot have a number of issues, one of which is a lack of attention to detail. The brain is structured so that it prefers to be lazy and seeks the simplest solutions to all problems. The same is true when it comes to assessing the environment around us. Why bother looking at a tree’s leaf form, height, and other characteristics if you can tell by the round shape of its fruit that it’s an apple tree?
Your mind will be taken to a new level if you pay attention to detail. It will work harder and not overlook essential details. Life flashes before your eyes when you live on autopilot, not seeing the simple things, since there are no imprints. Paying attention to details and appreciating their importance can assist you in breaking free from the robot cycle and beginning to ask questions and then seek answers.
It will be challenging at first, but after you see the rewards of paying attention to detail, you will want to study the deep material rather than stumbling about on the surface.
Be true to yourself
No, this isn’t another lecture about how important it is to be natural and stand out from the crowd. The goal is to quit adopting other people’s views and instead adapt your own. The truth is that adopting and following someone else’s
Being yourself isn’t about striving to be different; it’s about coming up with your own solutions. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t consider what others have gone through. On the contrary, it may be beneficial, but you should not utilize it without first examining the premises and implications.
Find something that makes you happy
As previously said, life drifts into autopilot mode owing to a lack of novelty. The days seem to fly by one after another, and suddenly summer has turned into winter, and then back into summer, and so on, year after year. In essence, it’s just being stuck in a habit.
To break out from this vicious cycle, you must include something into your life that elicits strong emotions and provides fulfillment. To break out of autopilot, all you have to do is arrange little, delightful moments into your calendar. Most importantly, if this motion generates a flutter in the chest, it is a sign of pleasurable excitement.
Be flexible with your expectations
This point is inextricably linked to the depiction of priorities, and one cannot exist without the other. After picturing their priorities and striving to break out of autopilot mode, many individuals revert to the robot’s normal functioning. This is because, after visualizing the priorities, they learned how challenging their objectives are and how much work is required to achieve them. As we all know, the brain likes to be lazy, and it starts to fight global changes, even if they would make life better in the future.
As a result, you must first create realistic objectives for yourself, even if they seem impossible. The next step is to break these objectives down into little chunks and make them easy for the brain so that he can understand that they are not challenging on their own. Then you should concentrate on optimistic expectations. In the first place, the brain is programmed to focus on the bad. As a result, you will have to exert effort on your part in order to discover reasons in your favor consistently.
