“YOU possess a kind of inner force that seeks to guide you toward your Life’s Task — what you are meant to accomplish in the time that you have to live. In childhood this force was clear to you. It directed you toward activities and subjects that fit your natural inclinations — that sparked a curiosity that was deep and primal. In the intervening years, the force tends to fade in and out as you listen more to parents and peers, to the daily anxieties that wear away at you. This can be the source of your unhappiness — your lack of connection to who you are and what makes you unique”-Taken from Mastery by Robert Greene.
For the last year I have been doing work with a client in San Fernando. At least twice a week I leave the West and head East taking the overpass that would take me directly to San Fernando. I’ve become so accustomed to taking this exit that I automatically take it even when I’m NOT going to visit this client. Have you had this experience or experienced driving somewhere and getting to your destination on auto-pilot? The on line Free Dictionary tells us that if you are on automatic pilot, or do something on automatic pilot, you do something without thinking about what you are doing, usually because you have done it many times before. Operating on auto-pilot mode is hazardous to you and ultimately hazardous to your business. Here are a couple reasons why.
When you operate on auto-pilot it means that you have lost connection to how you need to show up in the world. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Can you remember? Are you following your path or someone else’s? Remember, “Following another’s path leads to who they are, not to who you are.” ~ Harry Palmer. If you feel detached, uninvolved and enter each day filled with pain and dread then you need to definitely reconnect with yourself.
Marketing expert Marcia Yudkin suggests that as you look ahead to 2013, perhaps a better way than resolutions to gather the makings of a fabulous year is to adopt a practice that momentarily clears you of frantic fog and enables you to sense with clarity what’s best for you as you move on in your day. Build regular pauses into your day for reconnection. Make the act of reconnecting deliberate. Use sounds as a marker to remember that you need to reconnect. For example if your phone rings or deliberately set an alarm say every two hours as a reminder.
When you operate on auto-pilot it could mean that on some level you have taken yourself out of the equation and therefore removed any personal responsibility for what is happening right now in your business. Blogger Katie Tallo tells us, “Owning your choices is a way to get some fierce clarity that can change your life. It takes courage. It means tossing aside excuses, regrets, veils and blinders. It means snapping out of auto-pilot so that you can see your life with fierce clarity – see it for what it is and what it could potentially be. Fierce clarity is about gathering momentum and reclaiming your life.”
As you build regular pauses into your day, taking a stretch or a walk about use that time to ask yourself a couple of questions:
•Is this what I believe in?
•What would happen if I changed how I’m approaching this right now?
•Is there an alternative that perhaps I’m missing because I’m so locked into how it has always been done?
•Does this FEEL right?
And finally, when we operate on auto-pilot it means that we have started to live life devoid of ANY curiosity! I don’t know if on a subconscious level the proverb “curiosity killed the cat” prevents us from being more curious about our own lives. It was used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. But this is in fact the mindset that every business owner needs – one of a scientist – investigating everything and experimenting! We keep looking on the outside for answers when most of the answers are on the inside. There is a time and place for apprenticeship. A time for having a mentor…but then there comes a time when the student must become the teacher. When we drift from the shores of what we know, into the unknown – that’s where all the gems are. That’s when we truly awaken to the gifts of our trials and errors – to think in ways that others don’t and see things no one else is able to see.
“And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile, And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?” ~ David Byrne and Brian Eno from “Once in a Lifetime” Hopefully you will be able to always answer “How did I get here?” Robert Greene shares, “All of us are born unique. This uniqueness is marked genetically in our DNA. We are a one-time phenomenon in the universe – our exact genetic makeup has never occurred before nor will it ever be repeated.” Don’t you think this is good enough reason to snap out of auto-pilot and reclaim the life you were meant to live?
Get clear about marketing! 