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Chapter 3

Living on Automatic

“Automatic living may take us to a place we never would have chosen to go.”

My husband Graham and I enjoy kayaking together on the ocean near our home in Birch Bay. There is nothing more beautiful than being out on the water on a warm summer evening as the sunlight shimmers on the ocean while making its descent. On most days you can watch the sun go down all the way until it appears to hit the water and disappear under the waves, sending colorful pink and purple tones across the sky. I have to admit my typical preference is to spend a lot more time gazing then paddling so it becomes more of a sunset experience than exercise, but that is just fine with me. It is easy to get mesmerized by the beauty of the ocean and forget to watch the tides. On more than one occasion when I stopped paying attention to where I was going, the pulling tides have grabbed the kayak and started carrying me out to sea. I would end up being much further off shore than I ever planned to be.

Our lives can be compared to this kayak experience. It is so common to get caught up in the busyness of life – running a company, raising a family, making time for friends, being involved in your community, and all of the demands this puts on us, that we stop really paying attention to where we’re going. Sometimes it happens quickly, but more often gradually, and we wake up one day in a place we never intended to be. We didn’t mean to gain the 30 pounds; it came through habits that formed automatically over many years. We never intended to end up in an estranged relationship or divorce. It happened through small decisions, where the most important person in our lives was put in the back seat and other things moved to the forefront. We wanted to be there for all of the growing up moments of our kids, but work got in the way and now they are graduating.

In many areas of our lives, we were just cruising along automatically, and 20 – 30 years later found ourselves in completely different places than where we ever wanted to be.

To illustrate how much even the smallest misstep can have a large effect over time, let’s look at flying an airplane, where precision is an absolute must. Here are some interesting stats about flying just one degree off course:

1 For every degree you fly off course, you will miss your target by 92 feet for every mile that you fly.

2 For every 60 miles you fly, you will miss your target by one mile.

3 When flying from JFK to LAX it will put you nearly 50 miles away from your destination.

4 When flying around the equator you will land almost 500 miles off target.5

A one-degree mistake may not seem like a big deal, but when you can see the potential of the enormous impact, it causes you to pay attention. Though you may have tolerated automatic living in the past, becoming aware of it and realizing how easy it is to get off course will make you more attentive to your actions going forward.

Choose to be Intentional

Instead of living on automatic, we can choose intentional living.

In the services company I lead, one of our core values is continuous improvement in everything we do. In order to improve, there must be growth. At times throughout our 23 years of business, growing our people and our company seemed easy, almost automatic. However, looking back it wasn’t automatic, but a result of intentional effort.

John Maxwell, in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, reminds us of the need for intentionality in order to improve. “When we are children, our bodies grow automatically. A year goes by, and we become taller, stronger, and more capable of doing new things and facing new challenges. I think many people carry into adulthood a subconscious belief that mental, spiritual, and emotional growth follows a similar pattern. Time goes by, and we simply get better.” 6

Individuals don’t improve automatically, and companies don’t improve automatically. They improve only as the result of intentional effort.

This is not the case. Individuals don’t improve automatically, and companies don’t improve automatically. They improve only as the result of intentional effort. In my business, matching our core value of continuous improvement, we seek team members with a passion for learning and growth, and commit to providing training opportunities to ensure they are constantly growing. We are intentional about regularly evaluating our company performance. Through evaluation processes such as a company SWOT (a brainstorming session where your team lists strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), we identify areas for improvement, then develop a strategy and goals to keep moving the company forward.

Without the same level of intentionality in our personal lives, we can drift backward rather than improve and grow.

Much of our Behavior is Unconscious

Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis in the early 1900s, thoroughly explored the human mind and was one of the first scholars to talk about the power of the conscious and unconscious.7 According to Freud’s model, the unconscious mind is the primary guiding influence over daily life and leads to the most common of our human behaviors. It is far more powerful than the conscious mind, which consists of all of the mental processes of which we are aware.

Living on automatic is the result of this unconscious behavior, which will eventually lead to the habits or routines that control much of what we do.

Living on automatic is the result of this unconscious behavior, which will eventually lead to the habits or routines that control much of what we do. Whenever we do something over and over again, eventually it will be something that we do with ease, and without giving it much thought. As an example, think about your drive home from work every day. As creatures of habit, we will likely take the very same route home day after day without giving it any thought. When I moved to a different house in my town, there were several times over the first few weeks where I found myself ending up on the street at my old address.

Have you ever rearranged the drawers in your kitchen and found yourself going to the old silverware drawer about ten times until you finally trained your brain as to where the new drawer is? You get the idea.

These automatic behaviors result in habits which can either be good habits or more often, bad habits that lead us over time to the places we don’t want to go and the life we don’t want to lead. We will talk more about how to establish good habits and routines later in the book.

Identify Where You are Living on Automatic

There are seven main areas of life that you need to focus on and bring together in order to grow and reach your maximum potential.

They are:

 Physical – Your Health

 Mental – Your Mind, Personal Growth

 Spiritual – Your Values

 Family & Friends – Your Relationships

 Career/Business – Your Professional Life

 Financial – Your Money

 Fun & Recreation – Your Hobbies

Zig Ziglar, well known for Ziglar’s Wheel of Life, speaks about the main areas of your life as spokes on a wheel. Most of the “bumps” we experience in life are not due to the road, but the lack of attention to certain areas in our life which can make us off balance.

Think of each of these life areas as a place on the wheel. Together they make up a circle of your life. As you review each of these, where do you find your wheel full and round, and what areas need some help? A Life Wheel Exercise is included at the end of this chapter. Take time to utilize this effective tool to help you evaluate the 7 main areas of your life.

1. Physical

This area of your life focuses on your health and well-being. We only have one body and when it is not properly cared for, it can affect all of the other areas of our life. Yet, it is one of the top areas that is neglected. Like a car that needs to be regularly fueled and maintained to function properly, so do our bodies, or they will break down.

2. Mental

This area of your life focuses on the state of your mind as well as your personal growth. What are you doing to learn and grow? As we highlighted earlier in the chapter, mental growth does not happen automatically but as a result of intentional effort.

Entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives often find themselves so focused on growing and developing their teams, that they stop taking the time to develop themselves. When is the last time you took time out for yourself to take a class to improve on a skill, or learn something new?

3. Spiritual

This area of your life is your “Why.” I believe we were created on purpose, for a purpose, and each of us needs to determine what that is. This begins with identifying your personal values – what is most important to you. We will talk more about the importance of our personal values in Chapter 5 – The Juggling Act. Often, we fall into the trap of living for someone else’s values – perhaps our parents, a significant other, or a boss. When we are not sure of and living true to our own values, this will result in a sense of lacking in this area of your life.

For me, my faith has been an integral part of my life, has given me direction, and carried me through the difficult times. There have been situations where I didn’t know how I would have made it were it not for this beacon keeping me centered.

4. Family & Friends

The relationships in our lives are so important to experience full and abundant living. This is also an area in which it is easy to coast on automatic and not realize the significance our relationships have on the trajectory of our lives. Jim Rohn said it well, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Are you spending time with people that lift you up, encourage you, and challenge you? Do they share your values and live a life you admire? Or are the main people you spend regular time with pulling you down and holding you back?

A great exercise is to get these relationships on paper and evaluate them one by one. As you look back over the last month, or last year, list the three to five individuals that you spend the most time with (in order of most time spent) personally, professionally, and socially. Once you have done this, review each name and ask yourself, Does this individual bring me up or bring me down?” Another way to look at it is after spending time with this individual do you leave the situation feeling better, more energized, and happy, or do you leave feeling uneasy, disappointed, and drained?

Once you have the list and have evaluated it, the next step is to determine if you should expand the relationship, create limits or boundaries around it, or end it altogether. Sometimes the toughest decision to make is to end a relationship that is harming you, but it will make an incredible difference in your life. Just because you have had that friend since grade school, doesn’t mean you have to keep them when they are not a positive and uplifting influence in your life. Remember, don’t walk with the wild, the broken, or the broke. This doesn’t mean you can’t support these people in your life. You just don’t want them in your inner circle.

5. Career/Business

This is such an important category for most of us, in fact, one that we too often perceive as being our main identity. Think of the most common question people ask when greeting others at a business event: “What do you do?”

For me, I have to guard this area of my life very carefully. Like many driven executives who are “all in” when it comes to growing our businesses, it is easy to get consumed with our businesses and careers to the detriment of the other important areas of life.

When it comes to your career, are you doing what you love and loving what you do? If an immediate YES doesn’t come to mind, this category is worth further study. We spend far too much time working to be in a place of work or type of work that is not suited to our unique passion, gifts and talents.

6. Financial

Our financial state is another area that easily slips into automatic, and where small, seemingly insignificant decisions can lead to large negative results over time. As you evaluate this area, ask yourself if you are comfortable with your current financial situation and plan for the future, or if this is an area in your life that creates anxiety, or sleepless nights.

If the latter is the case, simple money management tools can help get us on the right path and lead us to more secure financial futures.

7. Fun & Recreation

For many, taking the time for personal fun and recreation is last on the list, and often gets eliminated altogether due to so many demands in the other life areas.

Talk to a typical business owner or executive and they will tell you that they are working long and hard on their career goals and haven’t taken a real vacation in years, if ever. When they do, they don’t truly unplug as they feel it is necessary to stay connected with the office.

Society has made us feel guilty for taking time off, so much so that we wear a badge of honor for working the most hours of anyone else on the team. Think about the standard company handbook, where you earn vacation as a reward after a year of service. When it comes time to take it, there often seems to be so much work to do that it is not worth it to take the time off.

Declare time for rejuvenation. We have to fight against the part of our work ethic that tells us time off equals “slacker,” when it simply is not true. Research shows that downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, enhances productivity and creativity, and is essential to achieve our highest levels of performance. When we take the time to rest, our brains are anything but idle. Instead downtime gives the brain an opportunity to make sense of the day and what it has recently learned; to surface unresolved tension; and to move from the external world to reflect within. 8

I will talk more about how we can train our brains for better focus later in the book. The bottom line is that all of us need to take proper time for rest and rejuvenation in order to operate at our optimum levels.

In order to transition to intentional living, and the full and abundant life we desire, we need to first understand where in our lives the unconscious, automatic living is hurting us. Then we can learn how to break the pattern and wake up, if you will. Once we’re awake, we can decide to live intentionally.