Ep 35: Doing an Autopilot Audit

If you’re going through life on autopilot - not really thinking through your choices, not totally sure why you’re doing what you’re doing - then you’re not alone. Most of us do this. But if you want to live your life the way YOU want to, you need to pay attention to what you’re doing and why. In this episode I’ll walk you through an Autopilot Audit, showing you how to become aware of where you may be sleepwalking through your life - and how to wake up to make the choices you really want to make.

Hey there, welcome to another episode of the I'm the Problem Podcast. My name is Stephanie Finigan. I am your host and coach, and today's episode is going to instruct you on how to do an autopilot audit. What is that exactly? It's a process by which you can go through to actually analyze your day-to-day life and figure out where it is both in big ways and very small ways that you are currently living your life on autopilot. You're living your life out of habits from the past as opposed to looking to your future and creating a life that you want.

For me, living on autopilot at a high level looks like living my life in sort of a A, B, C, D way, meaning you go from one event to the next event, to the next event, to the next event in a very predictable way, not because each of those steps were something that you chose, but because each of those steps are what you were supposed to do as told to you by parents, by friends, by the people around you, by the society that you grew up in, right? So I look at it like when I was growing up, there was no question whether or not I was going to go to college. And frankly, there was no question whether or not I was going to go to a four-year university. That's just what was going to happen. I don't remember deciding that's what I wanted to do or even considering that there was another choice. I just kind of understood because I absorbed from the messages around me that that is what you do to have a successful life. That's foundational. That's necessary. And so I went to a four-year college. Many of us grew up in this way where it was like go to school, get really good grades so that you can get into a good college. I didn't necessarily get really good grades, but that's a whole other episode. Then you graduate college and you go out in the world and you find a job and then you find somebody to marry and then you get married and you buy a house and have kids and then dot dot dot dot dot it kind of trails off after that and then you plan to retire. You just hit those big milestones and then you just kind of tread water within each of them and that is all meant to be leading us to a successful life.

There's nothing wrong with living your life that way. If that's the path that you've taken or that you plan to take and you are happy with that, that's what you want to be doing, great by all means. But if that's not for you or if you've done or plan to do those things in that order and you don't know why because you've never really stopped and asked yourself about this, that's where the recognition that you're probably living on autopilot comes in.

So a couple of specific examples. For a long time, I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a parent. I've sort of always known that if I wanted to be a parent, I was going to become a parent through adoption. And I remember thinking that even back in my 20s. So a lot of times when people meet me or know my story and they know that I have a foster child right now, they assume that my aim to adopt is because I'm in my 40s and I was in my 40s when I got married and like that's my only option. Something to that effect, right? First of all, it's not my only option. Second of all, not true at all. I say that because that was a divergence, right? Like that was me not living on autopilot because autopilot, where I grew up, would have been have your own kids.

However, I did hit a point where I wondered do I actually want kids or do I just want them because I think I'm supposed to want them? Or do I want them because everybody else has them and I feel sort of left out or I feel like there's something wrong with me or I've screwed up somehow if I don't have them. And I remember talking to a friend, I remember saying to her, how did you know for sure that you wanted to have kids? Like what was the thing? And she just looked at me and she said it never occurred to me not to because I never considered that that was an option. Like not having, it was something that she had literally never explored. And she said, she goes, I don't know that I ever actually wanted kids. It just never occurred to me that I wasn't going to have them. And again, that's living on autopilot. That doesn't mean that she's made the wrong decision. You can live on autopilot and make plenty of decisions that you are happy with. And I would argue in life, there really are no wrong decisions to make.

And so you can have kids or not, you can buy a home or not, you can go to a four-year college or not, you can do any of those things. But if you're doing them without knowing why, if you're doing them because you think that you're supposed to, that's where you want to stop and just kind of notice, like, huh, did I actually make this choice or was I just living on autopilot? And then I went that direction without wondering why.

And there's other examples of this that you can think about more personal choices, like how you vote in elections. There's also even more micro kind of day to day things that we do, right? The time you eat dinner every night, the route you drive to work, the type of toothpaste that you buy, like all of this stuff, those are some examples of how we can tend to exist on autopilot in big and small ways.

So the next question is then, why is this a problem? It's not actually a problem. You could definitely spend your life living on autopilot, whether or not you examine all of your choices. And there are logical reasons why we do this. So if you've listened to any of my podcasts or actually done any coaching before, you've likely heard a lot of discussion of the primitive brain, sometimes it's called the reptilian brain, the animal brain, however you want to think about it, it's the part of our brains that have been with us since way back, you know prior to us even being in caves that part of our brain that is Really meant to do just three things: saving energy, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The whole goal there is if I save enough energy I seek enough pleasure. I avoid enough pain. I'm not going to get hurt or die, right? Like that's the goal of that part of our brain.

So with that, when you think about changing routines, it's very likely that what's happening is that your primitive brain is taking over. Your primitive brain wants to save energy and making new choices, taking a left turn when you usually take a right, asking yourself if I really want the latte instead of just automatically hitting the app. Any of these things, big or small, they require energy from your brain. It requires you to stop. It requires you to think harder. It requires you to think in different ways and create different thoughts in your brain. And then it requires you to take different actions, which takes more energy for your brain to do. So for all of these reasons, your primitive brain is not interested in you living an examined life in any way. It's not interested in you asking yourself if these are things you really want to do. It's interested in you doing the exact same thing you did yesterday and the day before and the day before because it knows whatever you did in the past has kept you alive up until today, and therefore, if you do the same thing again, you will be alive. That's what your primitive brain is thinking. So it makes sense why we live on autopilot.

The other reason, which is related, of course, is that living on autopilot, it really sort of keeps us in this space of saving time, and we're busy, right? We are all busy. So me driving a different route to work, that could mean I end up 10 minutes late to work. Me trying to cook a new recipe for dinner, rather than one of the four that I know I can cook really well, might mean that dinner tastes terrible, nobody in the house eats it, I burn it, we eat later, right? Everyone's hungry, I'm hungry. There are reasons related to the primitive brain and also just related to practical topics in our day-to-day life, why we want to exist on autopilot.

For all of those reasons, then why would we ever not want to live on autopilot? First and foremost, I think the reason that we want to stop living on autopilot and start questioning our decisions, very simply, is that life is awful boring if that's what we're doing. If you're taking the same route to work every day, if you're taking the same vacation every summer, if you're seeing the exact same six people every weekend, God, that's so boring. The world is big. There is a lot out there for you to explore, and it's actually incredibly healthy for your brain to keep giving it new opportunities for growth, and that means doing different things. It requires you, when you're doing something different and you're not on autopilot, you are much more lit up. Your brain is required to be more alert.You are more present. You are there in the moment because you need to pay more attention. And that just makes everything we do a little bit more exciting or energizing. We are a little bit more engaged with our lives and the world and the people around us. Without doing that, there's not a lot of opportunity for growth. And with limited opportunity for growth, you're going to find limited opportunity for experience and joy. That is truly how we stay lit up and excited. So that's one reason why I think it's really important to not be living on autopilot all day, every day.

A second reason is that when you're living on autopilot, you don't know for sure that you're living your life because you're on autopilot, which means you're doing things because it's how they've always been done. You're doing things because it's how you've always done it. You're doing things because that's what everyone around you says you should do. We're pack animals. We don't want to be voted off the island. It makes sense that we want the people around us to like what we're doing and approve of us and it makes sense that we want to identify with the people around us by being similar to them. All of those things, and there's tons of evidence to back this up. Like all of those things are part of our fundamental wiring and evolution. So again, it makes sense, but just because it makes sense doesn't mean we have to keep doing it. You can be asking questions and doing things differently.

And finally, the other reason to do this is because it's how you grow into your future self and create a life that you want. So again, if you've listened to my podcast before or worked with me at all, you've heard me talk about the future self, your future self. And the way that you become the future version of yourself, the way that you get the things that you want and create the life that you want in the future is by starting to live that life right now. Like, that's how you do it. You envision what you want and then you start acting like it before you have it. That's how you create a future that is really truly yours and something you want. In order to do that, you're gonna have to start taking different actions and making different choices.

So if you're thinking like, I really wanna save money for a year so that my family and I can travel around the world for a year. I wanna pull the kids out of school, I wanna quit my job, and I want us to travel for a year as a family, and that would be so excited. If you wanna make that happen, you're gonna have to do some things differently. Meaning, maybe you're thinking like, I want to do it, but we don't have enough cash every month to put away. The math won't work. Okay, well, where can you get that cash? How much are you putting into your retirement every month? Is there a piece of that that you could take out? Was there all of that that you could take out and put aside for the next 12 months to save up for this dream vacation? I mean, I'm just spitballing here. This has nothing to do with your specific situation, of course, but just thinking most people would say, no way, no, I can't stop contributing to my 401k. I can't do that. That's so irresponsible. And why would I do that?

It's like, okay, but you could do that, right? Like it's your money. It's your life. Just because a financial advisor tells you not to do it doesn't mean that is like set in stone. That's not law. You get to decide to your money, to your retirement, you decide what you want to do. Who's to say that trip around the world won't lead to some opportunity that will actually double or triple your retirement opportunities after you get back? Like, who knows? You don't know. So again, we work with all these assumptions and we work within this safe space by staying on autopilot when the reality is if you stop and question things like that, question what you're doing and why you're doing it, you might really find, holy shit, there's so much stuff that I want to do and I could be doing and there's so many ways that I'm living on autopilot right now. I don't want to do that anymore because the life I want to live, my future self, the things that I want for myself and the people I love, those are more important to me than the fear that I have of making big changes.

Okay, so those are all the reasons why we do function on autopilot and all the reasons why you might want to consider doing an autopilot audit. So what does this look like? It looks like this. You go through a day, a week, a month, however you want to do it. I think a week is a nice amount of time, particularly if this is the first time you've done some activity like this. Five days is a short enough amount of time that you can stick to it, but also a long enough amount of time that you can start to see patterns in your own life. So commit to a certain amount of time, whatever it is for you, and during that amount of time, just make a point to be jotting down how many things you are doing on autopilot. So what this looks like is you get up in the morning at a certain time, you take a shower, you brush your teeth, you get dressed, you get your coffee, you get in the car, you drive to work, whatever, and just know, like when you get to your desk, just like pull out your notes app on your phone and just note like, okay, how many of those things were on autopilot? Like did I put any thought into any of that? What I'm wearing today and how I drove to work and what I put in my coffee and just note you don't have to make any judgment about it and you don't have to make any changes but just note how many things you're doing that you're just doing because you've done them so many times in the past.

Do that for each of the kind of segments of your day. So your pre-work day, your work day, your evening routine, your nighttime, weekday. I think it would be good to do this weekday and weekend if you can, stretch it over five days through a weekend or do five to seven days. But it's really interesting to start to notice how much stuff you're just doing it because you've always done it. So once you have that list, go back and look and you can start to group things together, right? So here's my typical autopilot morning, here's my autopilot afternoon, here's what I do on autopilot in the evening, and then take a look at that. And for each of those segments that you've identified where you're doing things on autopilot, ask yourself, if I'd never done this before, what would I be choosing? If I'd never driven to work before, what route would I choose to get there? If I'd never eaten breakfast before, what breakfast would I choose?

Your brain's going to immediately serve you up. Well, there's not enough time to take the longer route. There's not enough money to go buy a completely different wardrobe. Of course, I would choose my husband again. I'm not going to get divorced now. Like whatever it is that comes up, notice if your brain's kind of giving you those like, of course, of course, kind of resistant thoughts and put them to the side gently and just sort of ask yourself, genuinely, would I choose this again? If I'd never taken this job, would I choose this job again? If I'd never moved into this house? And for the things that you say no to, that's where you can start the work of taking new actions. Some of it's going to be small, right? Some of it's going to be like changing your breakfast routine, changing your latte order, changing what you wear to work. Other things are going to be bigger, like how you spend your time, who you spend your time with, where you live, what your career is. If any of those come up for you as, oh, I would not choose this again. Okay, well, let's start there by asking yourself, what would you choose? And that's where a lot of the future self work can be done. I have some podcasts about your future self and living into that. So you can go back through the podcast feed and find episodes related to that. Also, you can always connect with me over email at pivotcoachingqueue@gmail.com. This is a great place to get some coaching if you've done this pre-work and you're like, okay, I've identified the areas I'm living on autopilot and I'm not quite sure how to change them, but I know I want to. That's a great place to start getting coaching. Use this opportunity of an autopilot audit to help you see where it is you're kind of sleepwalking through life and then noticing where the things that you really want to change.

Two final thoughts on this. One is there might be things that you want to change, but you don't want to change them that badly. You don't want to go through the actions that you would need to go through and deal with the results or the consequences that you would need to deal with if you were going to change those things. That's okay. It's important to note that you want to make those changes, but if you're not in a space where you're going to make them right now, that's fine. It doesn't mean the exercise is for not, and it also doesn't mean that you can't ever make those changes. Just think about them as in, you know what, I don't want to leave my job right now, but I would like to at some point. I don't want to move to a different city right now. I don't want to start a business right now, but I would like to do it at some point. Like just admitting that to yourself is the first step towards kind of opening that door in your brain. It's letting your brain start to get comfortable with the idea that, hey, this is something that I want and it's okay to want it. This is a possibility for me. And it's something that I'm going to keep coming back to, even if I'm not ready to do it right now

So that's the first note and the second note is you are likely gonna find a lot of things you do on autopilot that you want to keep doing and that's amazing too, right? So it's like you might have some very elaborate nighttime routine with your kids that takes too long and you're always tired afterwards But you're like, you know what? I don't want to give up the nighttime routine I actually really like the nighttime routine with my kids. And if I had to do it all over again, of course, I would do every step of this. That's wonderful. So what you do then is you start doing that routine more intentionally, more alert, more aware, right? So rather than kind of being on autopilot and going through the motions with that routine, which you might be doing, maybe you're now just paying attention a little bit more because you recognize how much you like this routine and that this is something that you don't actually have to do. You're choosing to do it. You want to do it. And if you had to choose all over again, you would choose it just the same. So it's also just helpful and can bring a lot of joy. It's also just helpful and can really kind of lift you up just to recognize how much in your life you're doing on autopilot that you actually really like and you want to keep doing. And what a great thing that is to think about the life that you have, how many areas of it are exactly as you want them to be, or that you would choose them again, no matter how challenging they might be. I can think of a handful of things right now that I'm going through that I'm like, God, this is so hard and I can't wait for this phase to be over. I can't wait for this thing to pass. But you know what? If I had to do this all over again, I would change absolutely nothing. And when I think about that, it genuinely just calms me down a little bit and helps me understand that I'm choosing all of this. This is not me existing on autopilot, like I've made these choices on purpose, and now I'm going to pay attention to them on purpose, as opposed to just kind of going through the motions, which is what autopilot is.

If this is something that's interesting to you, I would love to coach you more. So like I said over at makeyourpivot.co, there are ways to get coached for free via email. You can find me on Instagram and shoot me a DM. We can coach there. Or you can sign up for a free consult and we can talk about diving in further to coaching in one of the one-on-one coaching packages that I offer. All right, so that's what I have for you today. All right, so that's what I have for you today. I will talk to you on the next episode.