ARE YOU LIVING LIFE ON AUTOPILOT?

Stop sleepwalking through your days and embrace the discomfort of uncertainty; infinite possibilities await you in that space in between, says Dr Jessamy Hibberd

- Dr Jessamy Hibberd

Despite the natural impulse to grow, at times this drive can be stunted. We can become so caught up in the daily grind that we stop seeing the beauty of life and just get through the day, the week, the year, putting off happiness for another time, not fully conscious of life and all it has to offer.

We have a natural desire to be consistent and are most happy when all our beliefs and values line up. Our brain prefers things to be as expected, and does its best to keep it that way. When information fits our framework or we are in situations we know, we can run on autopilot, a place our brain likes to be. When everything fits and there are no surprises, we experience less internal discomfort. We spend much of our lives in this comfortable state - but it brings with it some problems.

To stay in autopilot, our brain needs external inputs to be reasonably constant. In simple terms, this translates to a life in which we prefer to know how things will be and where we can follow the same patterns. The situations and experiences we encounter fit our mental map and we file them away without paying much attention. This is why weeks can feel like they go by in a blur. There is little to take notice of or deeply consider.

We go through the same routines, take the same routes, see the same people, engage in the same behaviours, without really looking up and thinking what we want from life. There are many good things in the familiarity, but it can also impact us negatively in subtle ways. It is like driving a well-known route; it is so easy to follow that we might stop taking notice of what's around us. We know exactly where we are going and we always end up at the same place.