Autopilot – a good thing or a bad thing?

For 8 years I drove the same route to work every morning. It was the obvious route – using the dual carriageway like everyone else – and it got me successfully to work every day.

I knew the route so well that I didn’t actually have to think about where I was going – sometimes I got to the carpark and realised I had spent the journey thinking about what I was going to do when I got to the office and I didn’t even remember parts of the journey. It was like I was on autopilot. But that didn’t seem to be a problem – it was convenient to be able to carry out part of life on autopilot as it allowed me to think about other more complicated things. So all was good. Or at least it was until they decided to close my road for roadworks. Then I had to change my route. So I took the back road to get to work. I was sure it would not be as straightforward as my normal route and would take me longer – after all there must have been some good reason why I hadn’t thought of using that route previously. However, after a week of taking the new route I realised that it was better than the old route – it didn’t take any longer, and was a more pleasant road. It was only then that I realised how stressed the busy dual carriageway made me feel. So I decided to make the back road the ‘new normal’ and go that way from then on.

It's a bit like life, isn’t it? We make a decision to go one way and then just keep on repeating it. Same job, same weekends, same problems. Maybe it’s easier to do life on autopilot rather than take time to think about alternative ways to go. But maybe you could make a change and find a better way that is better suited to your values, your skills, your aspirations? Perhaps you could find some time over the holiday period to pause and work out which aspects of your life have been on autopilot and start to review them. A change might be just what you need.

But thinking about change is hard and it is easy to sink back into familiar ways and habits. So if you would like a Coach to help you think things through in a way that is objective and optimistic, just get in touch with me for an initial chat on elizabeth@eascott.co.uk.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!