How often do you reach the end of a day, then struggle to remember much of what actually happened in it?
You woke up, checked your social media, got up, made the school run or the morning commute, showed up for the meeting and ticked the usual boxes as you went about your day.
But, somehow, the hours just slipped away. You weren’t asleep, but you weren’t entirely awake either.
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Living on autopilot
This is what living on autopilot looks and feels like.
In my experience, more and more thoughtful people are recognising the sensation in themselves and privately, feeling deeply uneasy about it.
A formula for living
Most of us were taught a formula for living a ‘successful’ life. It went something like this:
Work hard at school, get good grades and a decent qualification, find a steady job, climb the ladder, buy a house, raise a family, save for retirement. Then, when you look back, you’ll feel satisfied that your hard work and sacrifices have been worth it.
It is a formula that has worked, having served generations.
But here is the uncomfortable truth:
The world it was designed for has changed beyond recognition. The formula is no longer working the way it used to, and that’s giving rise to growing feelings of anxiety and disconnection.
The big shift
Our world has shifted under our feet.
Think about how dramatically life has changed in just the last decade or two.
Technology has completely rewired how we communicate, how we work and how we spend our leisure time. Artificial intelligence is reshaping entire industries and jobs. We’re experiencing climate concerns, the long shadow of a pandemic, political polarisation, wars and invasions, a cost-of-living crisis, and so it goes on.
This is not just background noise. This is the air we are breathing nowadays.
The careers we trained for are mutating in real time. The institutions we learnt to trust look less reliable than ever. Relationships, community, even the simple act of holding a conversation, are being remoulded by digital devices and programmed algorithms.
Despite this, most of us continue, day after day, to follow the same old routines. Same drive to work. Same well-worn opinions. Same coping habits. Same low-grade hope that things will somehow come right.
That’s autopilot.
Losing interest
When life on autopilot fails to deliver the meaning we crave, but we keep following it anyway, a subtle shift happens. We start to lose interest in life.
Not suddenly, not dramatically. Just a slow, gentle dimming.
The job that once excited us starts to feel like a daily tax we have to pay. Hobbies we once loved gather dust. We tell ourselves we are “too tired” or “too busy”, when what we really mean is we are becoming “disconnected”.
And then comes the bigger question — the one many people I have coached over the years eventually voice in some form:
“Is this it? Is this really what my life is meant to be about?”
Asking that question is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a sign that some part of you, deep inside and with great wisdom, is still very much awake and is alerting you to an urgent need to find a different way.
The courage to switch off autopilot
Here is the good news.
in my nearly 20 years in the life coaching industry, I have seen it proven again and again. It does not take a dramatic life overhaul to change all of this. It does not require leaving your marriage, quitting your job or moving to a remote mountain village.
It requires only one thing to begin with: the courage to reach forward and switch off your autopilot.
To pause. To question. To ask, gently but authentically, Why am I doing it this way? Whose formula am I following? What might happen if I tried something just a little different?
That single act of conscious questioning is, in my experience, the doorway through which meaning returns to one’s life.
A different approach
I am not suggesting we abandon everything we have built. I am suggesting we examine it with fresh eyes.
Try a different route home and notice what you see. Have the difficult conversation you have been avoiding. Dust off the project you shelved years ago. Volunteer for something that frightens you a little. Sit quietly for ten minutes a day and listen to what your own mind has been trying to tell you.
These are small acts. They are not you following a formula. They are you making deliberate choices.
And every time we choose consciously, rather than out of habit, we wake up a little more. Purpose follows attention, and meaning follows purpose. It really is that simple.
How life coaching helps us think differently
Of course, switching off the autopilot is easier said than done. Patterns are well established, and the ‘busyness’ of modern life conspires to keep us following them.
This is where life coaching, at its best, is such a gift.
At New Insights, we don’t believe good life coaching involves handing you another formula.
We believe a good coach is one who holds up a thoughtful, non-judgemental mirror and asks the kind of questions that allow you to see your own life with refreshing clarity.
A good coach will walk alongside you while you connect with your inner voice, make your own choices and try new ways.
Life coaching is a deeply caring intervention. It is also, in my opinion, one of the most empowering relationships a person can experience, because it puts you firmly back in the driver’s seat of your own life.
Your purpose?
Here is a thought I would like to leave you with.
If you clearly recognise how so many in our world are crying out for help to find purpose and meaning in their lives, what if that cry is also an invitation to you?
Could helping others wake up be your purpose?
Many of the most fulfilled people I know discovered their real purpose by becoming life coaches. Not because they wanted a new job, but because they wanted to do something that really mattered.
Helping other human beings switch off their autopilots and reconnect with their lives is deeply meaningful and rewarding work.
In a world that is changing as fast as ours, the coaches we are training today may well be among those special people who quietly help steer it in a better direction.
As Gandhi famously put it, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Food for thought
At New Insights we have spent more than two decades training self-aware adults — from all walks of life — to become certified life coaches through a flexible, in-depth programme of learning and practice that’s designed to fit your unique lifestyle.
Maybe it is time to switch off your own autopilot and explore how giving back to others can bring the purpose and meaning to your life that perhaps you crave?
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