Are you in control of your life? Do you decide the speed and route? These signs speak against it.
If we allow our lives to just happen to us, sooner or later we will probably regret it and get the feeling that we have missed an opportunity: the chance for a self-determined life, for our own experiences, self-made mistakes and right decisions, the gave us unforgettable moments. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to keep the steering wheel in your hand and steer yourself where the journey is going – there is this autopilot function that we sometimes switch to without really wanting to or noticing it. It’s insanely comfortable, but if we let it, we miss a lot of runs and routes that could enrich, touch and please us. The following signs may be signs that you are currently on autopilot.
9 signs you’re on autopilot right now
1. Your life is totally predictable
Routines are part of our everyday life and almost all people have many recurring elements in their daily routine. Habits save energy, which we then have available for new, special or unique experiences. However, if these new, special or unique experiences are completely absent from our lives, if we even fear and avoid them and leave no room for improvisation, flexibility and spontaneity, it can be a sign that autopilot mode is on. And we just no longer know how to steer.
2. You mostly do what other people want you to do
As part of a society, we are shaped to a large extent by prevailing expectations and values. Especially as uncritical children, we can hardly question whether it is really right to go to school and get a good degree and listen to adults and say please and thank you and so on. But at some point it would be advisable to consider which values and traditions we share and where we differ. If we don’t want to drive on autopilot our whole lives.
3. You never idle
Rushing from one to-do to the next and if there is time to relax in between, distract yourself with passive activities such as watching TV or scrolling through the Insta-Feed. Such everyday life is typical of autopilot phases, in which there are missing moments in which we deal with ourselves and rearrange ourselves or pursue activities that mean something to us (e.g. hobbies or relationships).
4. You feel like time is flying past you
Yes, as you get older, time seems to go by faster and faster. But especially when we’re on autopilot, she seems to race. Days, weeks and months seem to blur without anything happening. We lack variety and changes of direction, pausing or changes in tempo that interrupt the passage of time for a moment for our perception.
5. You have trouble remembering things
When all days are the same and we’re not actively involved in what we’re doing because we’re on autopilot, we tend to lack highlights, first times, intense moments, and emotions to remember and time out can orient. So we get problems both to remember events at all and to classify when something happened.
6. You feel like you’re missing out
Most of the time, after being on autopilot for (too) long, we feel that our life could or should be different and that we are missing out on something. We crave things we don’t have, dream of things we don’t do. We no longer know how to veer or are afraid to veer, so we stay where we are and let our dreams and aspirations rush by while autopilot drives us on.
7. You overcommit yourself without asking why
Even if we don’t feel overly energetic, if we’re living on autopilot, we’re usually missing things that we can devote ourselves to with full energy and passion. In which we feel and let us feel that we are alive. They give us validation and self-confidence. That’s why, on autopilot, we tend to throw ourselves into every task that comes our way and take it overly seriously without considering whether it’s really that important to us.
8. Your mind is often elsewhere
Since we don’t have much to control in autopilot anyway, our thoughts typically often wander in this mode, wandering from the future to the past, into some dream world or through the world news situation. They are seldom focused on the here and now.
9. You don’t feel any incentive to start the day in the morning
We certainly don’t have to jump out of bed and head to Tate every morning elated and motivated. But if we wake up every day and think “Oh, no, not again”, this could be a sign that we are passengers on a journey that we really don’t feel like going on anymore and that doesn’t require any initiative from us or envisages.
If some of these points from your own life seem familiar to you and, above all, you have the feeling that you are currently on autopilot, a first possible and sensible measure is certainly to step on the brakes and orientate yourself. Where are you? What is currently the content you fill your life with? What does this content mean to you? What would you like to do more of and less of? where are you going Answering these questions is a good starting point, and often it will tell you what gear to put in next and where to steer.
Sources used: psychologytoday.com, success.com