Are you in autopilot mode?
Most of us get busy with our lives and knowingly or unknowingly, have slipped into autopilot mode at some point or the other. So what is autopilot mode and how do I know if I’m functioning in autopilot mode?
If your supervisor at work ask you to start the coffee machine so that all of you can enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee, you could either randomly press all the available buttons in the machine and let the machine start after n number of tries or, you can take a moment and try to understand the machine and press the right buttons in the right order and let the coffee pour out of the machine.
Autopilot mode is when we stop spending time on thinking analytically and rely completely on our intuition or the information that our brain is already aware of.
A simplest example is, what is 2 multiplied by 5? We all know its 10. So we retrieve this information — almost very quickly — from our subconscious and conclude: it is 10. We don’t spend time thinking about why 2 times 5 is 10, we simply make a quick conclusion that the answer is 10. Retrieving information like this can help us in several situations such as if we burn our hand while making pasta, we swiftly move our hands to a safety position without a second thought. However, constant relying on such readily available information and executing readily known tasks is what drags us into the autopilot mode.
We must always focus on keeping that little organ floating in the CSF inside our skulls up to date. Apple have huge business today, but if they stops to keep up with the state of the art technologies such as AI or Quantum computers, as the time passes Apple might find it hard to find new customers. Our minds are no different. If we don’t feed it new information and keep it up to date, we might feel out of date or feel lost later in our life. I feel that autopilot mode is the most outdated phenomenon that most of us experience in our lives. So how do we get over it?
The answer is: SLOW DOWN your thoughts.
According to the Nobel winning psychologist Dr. Daniel Kahneman, our thinking is divided into two systems: quick and intuitive thinking called system 1, slow and analytical thinking called system 2.
It is recommended that an individual maintains an equilibrium between both these systems of mind rather than relying entirely on one particular system.
If waking up in the morning, preparing kids to school and driving to work is your daily routine, pause the time for a minute and take a moment to yourself. Focus on being aware of every minute of your life. Starting your day with a 5 mins of meditation helps to slow down time. There are other techniques: may be for few minutes watch the sun rising, the birds chirping, the leaves dancing as the wind pass by. This slows down your mind and helps better manage your thoughts with practice. May be sing a song or tell a story that you learned the other day to your kid while you get them ready for school. Practice driving mindfully to your work, i.e without being engulfed by other thoughts while you drive.
The next step is to understand yourselves better. Knowing about cognitive biases and which biases govern your life can do magic. Developing critical thinking skills like this lets you see every nook and corner of a problem before you make a decision and act on it. In the case of the coffee machine, you see all possible buttons and understand which button sequence will work right and decide on pressing only the exact two buttons that gives life to the machine and gives you the desired coffee.
To put it in a nutshell, mindfulness and developing your critical thinking skills are few among the most important steps to break the chain of autopilot mode. Training yourself to be at the present and understanding the cognitive biases helps to achieve a stable equilibrium between your systems 1 and 2. Because with this, you become aware: if you rely too much on your available reserves or if you are open to new ideas and thoughts. Thus breaking free from the chain of consistently relying on readily available information and readily executable tasks in life.
Slow down… think before you act… be compassionate to yourself…
spoiler alert: I have never operated a coffee machine because my supervisor never asked to operate one :D