By that, I mean figure out new responses to impulses, new reactions to situations, and new coping mechanisms for stress. It means making new decisions about how to respond to something that would normally make us do the thing that we’re trying to change. It’s pretty much the opposite of being on auto-pilot.
And therein lies the problem. See, most of us can function in this increasingly high-information, low-reward world only by doing daily routine tasks and making routine decisions without really thinking about them too much. If we had to think about every little thing, we’d be drowning in detail and paralyzed by indecision; instead, we tend to engage the auto-pilot and fall into routines and behaviors so familiar we don’t have to think about them much at all. We do them almost without thinking.
Hands up: who here has gone into a room and forgotten why we went there in the first place? Auto pilot. Driven a familiar route while thinking about something completely different and ending up in the right place? Auto pilot. Lit a cigarette and taken a puff, only to discover you already had one burning in the ashtray next to you? Yep—auto pilot strikes again. Auto pilot can be helpful, especially during times of stress. It lets you function while letting your mind focus on other things. It helps you react quickly in crises. And it lets you opt out of making thousands of tiny little conscious choices all day long, helping you avoid decision fatigue (hey, it’s a thing!).
The flip side (there’s always a flip side to these things, isn’t there?) is that it also helps perpetuate undesirable behaviors and unhealthy routines. It contributes to inertia at work and on the home front. We hop on our own personal hamster wheels and check out of conscious decision-making. It can be samey and not terribly exciting, but it also doesn’t force us to confront those things about ourselves that we want to change, never mind actually taking steps to do so.
And addiction adds a whole other component to that wheel: the endless cycle of chasing a certain feeling, but never quite getting there—at least not for long. When we finally do take steps to change these behaviors, we are forced to hop off the wheel, disengage the auto pilot, and make conscious decisions about what we are doing (and feeling), all day long. It’s exhausting. It’s uncomfortable. In the moment, it kind of sucks.
It’s also totally worth it in the long run.
And fear not, you don’t have to leave that auto pilot switched off forever. That’s the beauty of it; it turns itself back on once you’ve gotten used to your “new normal.” It’s so sneaky you don’t even realize it’s happening, and once it’s back on, you can go about your life with one less thing to worry about, one less thing to keep you stuck on that wheel. Because, of course, now you know how to hop off when you need to.
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WHOEVER CREATED THE LIST IMAGE, WE NEED TO UPDATE IT IF POSSIBLE?