“Autopilot has gone from being an evolutionary protection mechanism that stopped our brains overloading, to our default mode of operating whereby we sleepwalk into our choices,” Dr.

However, when this automatic feature starts slipping into other areas of your life that need more forethought, it comes at an emotional cost-your happiness. Your ability to think about what’s not happening at any given moment is a cognitive achievement that makes life easier. Whenever it can, your brain will kick into an automatic decision-making gear to save energy, freeing up your conscious mind to work on other mentally taxing things. Imagine if you had to remember to get dressed every day. Our brain can’t possibly take the time to consider every single thing we do. The scientific community suggests that we make about 35,000 decisions each day. We are creatures of habit and routine, which isn’t always a bad thing. That was your brain working on autopilot while your mind wandered-more on this in a minute! But first, let’s get one thing straight. What about that time someone was talking to you but you weren’t really listening so you had to ask them to repeat what they said? The drive was a blur, yet you arrived home safe and sound. You’ve just driven home and stepped out of your car, but you don’t remember stopping at any lights, switching any lanes or making that right-hand turn. So what exactly does living on autopilot look like? Here’s the best way I can describe it… Mark Williamson, the director of Action for Happiness, and Professor Renata Salecl, a sociologist and philosopher, surveyed 3,000 people in which 96 percent of them admitted living on autopilot. This lack of lust for life may stem from living on autopilot- making unconscious, automatic decisions that don’t align with how you want to work and live. – Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbertĭo you feel lifeless, or maybe bored? Kind of like you’re merely existing instead of really living? Ever had to tell someone the date, causing you to look back and reflect on where the days, weeks, months or years went? “A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”

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