NLP for Not Living on Autopilot

Filed Under (NLP life coaching) on 01-10-2022

Tagged Under : , ,

NLP for autopilot… Well, if you live on autopilot a lot and have been searching for ways how not to live on it, NLP has ways to help.

If living on autopilot has a positive intention, the intention must be to make life easier, to get through boring repetitive mechanical tasks without too much mental effort. Is there another positive intention? Or is there any at all? This article isn’t about why living on autopilot might be good. Because it isn’t good for most people. This article is about why living on autopilot is bad. So…

Living on autopilot is dangerous and demotivating

Living on autopilot makes us empty, puzzled, absentminded, even feel like robots… That’s why it’s demotivating. It makes us empty because when we do things on autopilot, we don’t enjoy the rewards of the actions. The rewards can be simply feeling that the actions go smoothly, we do them in the shortest time – thus pack a lot into our days, or that the actions are done and hence prepare us for more impactful actions or shift us further. Living on autopilot makes us puzzled because we surprise ourselves at how we don’t remember whether we did something or not.  It then makes us absentminded because when we are on autopilot, the mind is indeed absent! And it makes us feel like robots because robots don’t need a mind that is aware and can enjoy the rewards of the actions. Robots need only a program.

Living on autopilot is dangerous because we can do stupid things without realising it! Many people drive without knowing how they drive! That’s daydreaming behind the wheel… the marvellous work of the other than conscious mind when the conscious mind is occupied with something mechanical. But it’s still an autopilot because one is not aware of how he drives. Many people don’t remember whether they turned an appliance off or washed the shampoo from the head when it didn’t sting their eyes! Living on autopilot causes perfectly avoidable accidents which cost the society time, money, energy, and make everyone suffer.

And it turns people into zombies who swim through life without using the mind, thinking about what they do, and the consequences of their actions. It’s a sad existence of which we see too much in today’s world. So if you decided to work on not living in this state, here’s some

NLP for not living on autopilot

The first thing is the trinity of awareness, intention, attention.  This holy trinity goes together everywhere and is inseparable. If you draw a circle and put the three elements on the edge of the circle, you can start from any element.  Most people start from awareness.  Awareness that they do x, y, z, and many more things on autopilot! Then they set the intention that they’ll start catching themselves on autopilot. And then they start paying attention to daily situations. The rest is practice. But I said that most people start from awareness. So you can experiment and you’ll find what element will be best for you to start with!

Now how to catch yourself on autopilot when you do so much on it? By thoroughly getting to know what being on autopilot feels like. When you know well what it feels like, the feeling itself coming on the next time will become an anchor. The anchor that will trigger you to realise that oops – you’re on autopilot like a traffic light triggers you to do the appropriate thing. And that’s how you’ll catch yourself on autopilot.  If you think about it, you’ll conclude that the feeling of autopilot can be your only anchor!

Other NLP ways to deal with autopilot

One is spotting patterns. When you progress to a stage of catching yourself on autopilot more, you can start observing patterns in the times when you are on autopilot the most, or patterns in situations in which you are mostly on autopilot, etc. You can observe patterns of whether more autopilot happens at work or at home, in what environments, behaviours, etc., whether the situations in which autopilot happens are mostly emotionally positive, neutral, or negative… Just reading this paragraph can get you thinking about the contexts in which you can observe patterns.

Or you can tackle autopilot this way. Do you have a situation in which you’re never on autopilot? If you found one, think about what makes you be aware, intent, and attentive in that situation. How come that you’re never on autopilot there? What makes the difference? Find the factor that makes the difference and voilá – you can map it across to situations in which you’re often on autopilot.

One more beautiful way to practice not being on autopilot but being fully aware is eating. From the next meal put the feet firmly on the ground which will ground you. Then eat and only eat. Do not fiddle with the phone, do not watch TV, and do your best not to even speak when eating. Look at and focus on every mouthful of the food. Chew every solid mouthful at least 32 times if possible and enjoy the flavours. You will see how eating will teach you awareness and attention. It is honestly the best exercise against autopilot as so many people eat on autopilot too!

And how to keep not living on autopilot?

When you have caught yourself on autopilot, you start paying attention, which makes you aware that you can live this situation fully aware. Realising this gives you the option to set the intent that you don’t have to live this situation on autopilot again. So you can decide at this moment that you’ll go through this situation fully aware – or you won’t live this situation on autopilot – again the next time this situation comes around. Let’s say that it will be tomorrow.  So tomorrow you’ll go through the situation fully aware again and feel great for it. And you’ll tell yourself that you’ll repeat this again tomorrow… You get the idea.  The bottom line is that you decide not to live this situation on autopilot on the first day and tell yourself that if you could do it today – on the first day, you can do it tomorrow.

After already even two weeks the brain will start leading you to do it aware, because you’ve lived all the benefits of full awareness, intention, attention, and perhaps even started discovering details in the situation which you had never been aware of so far. And that’s where the rewards – beauties – of not living on autopilot come in… And beauties don’t end there.  People who live in awareness and pay attention to life don’t need alcohol, drugs, games, addictions. They get addicted to the beauties of life. And some good coaching is one of and always reveals more beauties of life.  Would you like to try it?

Comments are closed.