Running on AutomaticÂ
We run on automatic pilot for most of the day, this is the brains way of helping us to make quicker decisions.
Do you wake up in the morning, follow the same routine? Step out of bed, put on slippers, stretch, brush teeth and then shower.
Do you sometimes, when tiered get to the brush teeth section of your automatic procedure without realising that you have already completed the first three steps?
This is because you are running on automatic pilot. Have you noticed that most people attending a week training course, or people who go to church on a weekly basis sit in the same chair?
How do you know how to open a door? You don’t stand there and work out how each door opens, no – you automatically pull the door open without thinking about it, again your brain has made a generalisation that pulling the door is how you open a door.
Being automatic allows you to concentrate on others things; the problem here is that people run automatic stress patterns. They do X with out thinking, which causes them to feel stressed.
The procrastinating student is given 4 weeks to complete an essay. He knows from past experience that if he leaves it to the last minute he will feel stressed. But what happens, his automatic pilot kicks in, 3 weeks later he is completely stressed without having started his essay.
A lost driver, looking for a destination becomes stressed. He drives down the street, turns left and then right, stress levels increasing. He could stop look at a map or even ask a passer-by, but his automatic pilot is in full swing, he keeps driving, turning left and right, stress levels increasing.
Our automatic pilots are learnt behaviours, and if you learnt to behaviour in this way, you can learn a new more stress free way off operating automatically. First you need to interrupt your pattern, and do something different. Now your minds pilot has taken a break, you have to consciously take the next step.
Your mind learns really quickly, if you do your new positive process several times you will create a new more beneficial and stress free automatic pilot.
