Mind Your Auto-Pilot
Our internal auto-pilot can be dangerous. It can be shortsighted and deceitful. It produces a tunnel vision focused on managing the “right now”.
Everyone’s life is multidimensional: career, relationships, home, commute, bills, obligations, schedules, etc. It isn’t easy to balance it all. Most of us, without much thought, delegate the management of the daily chaos to our auto-pilot. It simplifies things and gets them done. True. But watch out, the focus on managing the “right now” can be so consuming that we lose sight of the “big picture”.
The auto-pilot shouldn’t be trusted blindly. Don’t lose track of time, don’t lose sight of your goals and dreams, don’t stop asking the BIG questions. Set aside time every week for measuring the passage of time and your personal progress. If anything interferes with your perception of time or impedes progress toward your goals: STOP, THINK and MAKE CHANGES! Speaking from experience, few things are worse than realizing LATE, you failed to do that!
We are so busy and tired that falling back on the auto-pilot is often an easy and convenient “solution”. Beware! Time passes. Children become adults. Parents get old and die.
Don’t wake up some day to realize that “thanks” to the convenient auto-pilot you missed important milestones in your life. Don’t find yourself in a position when you discover that many opportunities – if not life itself – passed you by.
The auto-pilot is an efficient manager, but it doesn’t replace you as the owner and leader. Click To Tweet
If you neglect to check the auto-pilot’s work IN THE CONTEXT OF THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE regularly, you’ll be amazed by the damage an efficient management can cause. Don’t outsource your life to the auto-pilot!
What to watch for? Feeling neglected, tired, used, stuck or resigned, frequently. The auto-pilot is great for surviving and day-to-day management. It won’t take care of your physical, intellectual or emotional needs. It won’t alert you to time wasted, things not worth doing, relationships no longer worth having, or lack of personal progress. It will tell you to shut up and bear with uncomfortable things “for the sake of now”: watch out, the “temporary” can and does become “permanent” in no time, unless you check on your auto-pilot, regularly and often.
Yes, I am a personal development coach and a great one at that. I’m also a human being with a life of my own. In my private life, I’m at a stage of rebuilding. What happened? I assumed that my auto-pilot is trustworthy. After all, it reported daily that “all is good” and “all is under control”. It was: for a specific day, week or month. And yet somehow, my auto-pilot missed reporting on YEARS, years that could have been invested better, should have yielded more, could have been lived better and happier.
Speaking from personal experience: mind your auto-pilot! Do NOT repeat my mistake. No manager, no matter how efficient, can replace YOU as the boss! Stay in control, ask the big questions, weekly.
