Autopilot in life is necessary in so many ways.
It saves us energy in routine and daily decision making, in thinking, in conscious choice, routine actions and routine behaviour. Without autopilot I think we’d all go a bit crazy and be out of energy by about 10am.
But whilst autopilot works for so much of life, we can be running on it when there may be a real opportunity to live more consciously. It definitely has its benefits for getting us through the day. It can also leave us feeling like robots: going back and forth through life every day without really feeling very much. Until one day we notice that what we’re feeling is dissatisfaction, apathy, a sense that something is missing, all while still having to turn up and live our life every day.
Hand in hand with autopilot, we become less present and less engaged. And over time, that can mean zoning out for a significant while, only to surface with a sudden realisation that we’re not happy any more, with no clear way back.
If you’ve found yourself on autopilot, here are five ways to start switching it off and re-engaging with work, your career, or whatever part of life has gone quiet.
Remember why you are where you are
Getting back to why what you’re doing was once so important to you can bring real meaning to what you’re doing now. The love you had for an industry, the desire to build a skillset, to work for a brand, to make a difference, to progress. Whatever your driver was, if you can resurface it, you can often find meaning in what you’re doing now.
And notice, honestly, what happens when you try. If the why comes back warm, that’s autopilot lifting. If you reach for it and find it’s gone cold, that’s information of a different kind. Hold that thought.
Start getting curious
Ask more questions. Go a bit deeper into the things that come up in the day: the people, the projects, the behaviours, the opportunities, the challenges. Your autopilot would normally sail past these nuances, so grab onto them and get curious about what’s behind them. Assert yourself into the things around you that your autopilot would blissfully ignore.
Run a small experiment
Autopilot loves the familiar, so give it something unfamiliar, at a size that doesn’t need courage in bulk. Take the lead on something put in front of you. Add value where it isn’t expected. Ask someone what their biggest challenge is and offer to help. Have one conversation that stretches you. Not a leap: an experiment, small enough to run this week, real enough to teach you something about what still has energy in it for you.
Welcome disruption to your routine
Routine is what breeds autopilot. And when you’re on autopilot, any break in routine can feel like a much bigger nuisance than it really is, not because of what it actually represents, but simply because it’s snapped you off autopilot. So be conscious in breaking your routine yourself. Go to work a different way. Have lunch at a different time. Switch your exercise timings. Whatever you usually do on a Friday night, do something else. Break your routine, bust your autopilot.
Set goals
Setting goals keeps you present and engaged, steered clear of autopilot as you work towards them. Daily goals, weekly goals, bigger career or life goals. It can be as simple as a Tuesday goal of finishing the task that keeps rolling over, or walking a new route for 30 minutes before you sit down to your laptop. Small, concrete, conscious.
From default to deliberate
Here’s the bigger picture: autopilot is your defaults doing the driving. Defaults are brilliant servants; they’re how we get through busy lives. But transitions, whether they’ve come by choice or by circumstance, tend to arrive with a different need: a shift from default ways of thinking and behaving to more deliberate ones.
I distinctly remember when that shift began for me: the thought “I want to spend my time more meaningfully”. Everything I eventually changed roots back to that moment. Not just the thought but critically, the actions that followed.
Professionally, the shift might look like moving from the default of doing to the deliberate act of effective delegation. From always saying yes to holding a boundary. From head down to becoming more visible. Personally, it could be as small as walking to the station instead of always taking the bus, or as considered as changing how you spend your time to feel more alive and well.
This is the work of transition: to recognise when defaults that once worked for you no longer serve you. And then entering a process of thinking, learning, testing and adjusting, so you can still be yourself, but in a more deliberate and evolved way.
And then the honest question
Here’s the part the five ways can’t answer for you. Autopilot is a habit, but it can also be a shelter. Sometimes we stop feeling because feeling would tell us something inconvenient: that the role has been outgrown, that what mattered five years ago doesn’t any more, that something has ended and we haven’t wanted to acknowledge it.
So once you’re a little more awake, ask yourself: what was autopilot helping me not to notice?
Maybe the answer is nothing much, and re-engaging is exactly the fix: you’ll know, because the five ways above will feel good. Or maybe what surfaces is the sense that something has genuinely shifted. That’s not a problem to switch off again; it’s a place to start. And if you’d like to work out which of the two you’re looking at, a first conversation is free, takes about 30 minutes, and is a good place to tell the difference.
