A Life by Design Not by Auto-Pilot, Design Your Life Using 3 Pillars.
Dont live a life by default, live a life by design. Switch off auto-pilot & use these 3 pillars to design your life.
The sad reality is that most people aside from a small percentage who live life on their terms operate on autopilot.
Autopilot originates with aircraft and is a software or tool used to direct the plane without constant manual control by a human pilot.
In aircraft autopilot is highly useful but when it comes to your life and the way you operate it you don’t want to be on autopilot.
The only time you want to be on autopilot in your life is when it’s reinforcing your good habits and behaviors — having great routines, eating well, looking after your body, being productive, etc.
After all these things aid your daily life and overall life experience.
But when it comes to other aspects of your life like your overall existence and satisfaction and happiness levels, you don’t want to be on autopilot.
If you’re on autopilot with these things you are not in full conscious control of your life.
Often it’s other people, circumstances, and even the programming in your subconscious mind running the show — controlling your life.
What happens here is that so much of your life just happens by default, without much conscious effort on your part.
It’s an incredibly disempowering way to live life and gives way to much monotony, dissatisfaction, feeling lost, and many other negative states.
You’re not operating your plane, at least not consciously, it’s set to autopilot and heading in a direction that generally isn’t the right one for you.
It’s life by default not by design.
So what do you do?
Obviously, you switch off auto-pilot.
But if it were that simple why don’t most people do this?
Answer: they are run by their paradigm which is their subconscious program. This program also reinforces the top three fears that dominate most people. You got to then rewire your mind.
It should also be added that most people are brainwashed by society to be average and this also reinforces being on autopilot.
Let’s face it — society is set up to make you average, it doesn’t encourage big thinking.
So then how do you switch off autopilot?
First, you need to acknowledge you are on autopilot.
You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.
This requires a reasonable degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
I believe these are superpowers but lacking in most of the human population.
Many people prefer to live in denial and won’t take responsibility for their life.
They blame their relationships, work, financial status, family upbringing, etc.
They also believe it’s just the way it is and reinforce it with beliefs like “I can’t change”, and “I’ve just got to accept it and deal with it.”
How disempowering!
A life by design not by default
You can change and design your life the way you want it no matter how dire your situation is.
Our creator or if you believe in evolution gave us the prerogative to think for ourselves and not live by instinct and the genetic code alone.
This is both an honor and a real responsibility.
All other forms of life live by instinct and the genetic code which is a form of evolutionary autopilot.
But humans don’t just live by instinct and the genetic code alone.
Humans have the power to think, mold, and shape so much of their lives the way they want.
But sadly the majority of people on our planet let this power go to waste and at best lead an average and mediocre life run by their programming.
But you don’t have to be one of these people.
You can be the small percentage — the 2% to 4% of society that lives life by design (on their terms)
I'm not trying to sell you some fluffy fantasy dream life here.
What I’m suggesting is a life that’s much more functional and congruent with who you are.
I'm a realist and a highly practical person at heart who values intelligence and logic.
Designing your life is intelligent and logical.
Living life on autopilot is not.
The three pillars
I'm here to show you that your life could be so much better even extraordinary if you take charge of it ( be the pilot ) & design it using the three pillars described below.
These pillars are based on my research and immersion in self-improvement, personal development, design thinking, and mental science.
So let’s dive right into the three pillars and start designing your life.
Disclaimer- You won’t be able to design everything in your life as there are forces outside your control like nature, pandemics, deaths, etc but you can absolutely design so many elements. Not to mention you can design your responses to difficult events in your life.
Pillar 1: Identify your gap
Essentially this is all about going within and recognizing that place of discomfort and dissatisfaction that resides within you.
I honestly believe every human being on the planet has or has had a gap in their life.
The gap is a chasm inside you that makes itself felt through negative states like dissatisfaction, feeling lost, depression, anxiety, and sadness.
Many people try to fill it up with drugs, alcohol, sex, and endless Netflix binges but these things only provide temporary relief. The gap is still there.
Most of the time it gets bigger with time if you don’t do anything about it.
This gap is also known as the void, the hole in your life, empty space, etc.
Whatever name you choose to call it it’s an unpleasant place to be in, but it’s the starting point of all true change.
It’s through identifying your gap and making a conscious decision and effort to close it that change starts to set in and autopilot is switched off.
You’ve got to reach the point of no return. That is “I’ve had it”, “Enough is enough”!
Often a crisis will get you to this point. Hence why so many people turn their lives around after a crisis.
Before it, they are still too comfortable even if they are suffering.
But you don’t need to wait for a crisis to turn your life around.
You can start now right here with this article and commit to turning your life around.
The realization that you have this gap in your life often leads to the dark night of the soul (a spiritual metamorphosis)
But it’s only through venturing into the dark that you can come to the light.
When you are in this dark space this is where the real work begins of turning your life around.
Actions to undertake:
- Spend time alone in self-reflection daily. Through spending time with yourself uninterrupted you get to know yourself. Getting out into nature is great for self-discovery.
- Write out all the things that are not working in your life and burn them to symbolically release them. You may need to do this several times. Anything that doesn’t serve you holds you back. Let it go!
- Study Bob Proctor’s work on paradigms and change them. It's phenomenal stuff that every human being on the planet should know. Along with this look into Dr Joe Dispezna’s work on reprogramming your mind. Our mind is often our greatest enemy.
Pillar 2: work on closing the gap
If the first pillar is ultimately identifying what you don’t want in your life, the second pillar is all about getting clear on what you do want.
I'm a big believer that you first need to know what you don’t want before you know what you do want.
This can take a while so be patient and gentle with yourself. I should know as it’s taken me years to figure out this pillar.
Clarity is the power they say and it’s so true. If you're not clear autopilot just gets stronger and stronger in your life.
But through working on yourself and reprogramming your mind for a happier life I guarantee you will become clearer on what you want.
It’s one of the best feelings in the world.
But to know what you do want requires deep self-reflection, brutal self-honesty, self-awareness, and introspection.
It’s bloody hard work!.
But it’s so worth it and rewarding.
Stay away from people like gurus and some personal development teachers promising you quick fixes to get your life together and show you your purpose.
There are no quick fixes.
Your purpose and overall self-discovery unfold step by step as you become more mentally and emotionally mature, and step into your true self.
I promise you it becomes easier once you implement the below strategies.
Most people won’t do this step and hence why autopilot just keeps getting reinforced.
Actions to take:
- Practice asking powerful questions like ‘What do I really want? ‘What do I love doing?’ ‘Who do I want to be?’ The right questions have the power to change your life.
- Get clear on your purpose, vision, and goals for your life. These give you meaning and direction in life. Align these with your values and your principles for congruency.
- Tap into your intuition that’s the part of you that knows what you truly want but often has been buried deep. Jack Canfield has written this blog: 7 Tips to Strengthen Your Intuition and Take Soul-Inspired Action.
Pillar 3: Create a blueprint for your life
This is the fun pillar — creating a vision book for your life but can only be done once pillars 1 and 2 have been completed.
If you jump straight to this pillar without doing the others, it’s like reading a book from the end.
You’ve missed the beginning and the middle which were vital.
Once you are ready for this pillar get prepared to create magic — your life on your terms!
This will be your North Star that will guide you in life.
It’s all about you customizing your life the way you want.
Think about it — people customize their phones, pizzas, homes, holidays, and more but ironically give little thought to customizing their life.
I personally think it’s one of the greatest ironies of human existence.
Once you start customizing your life, it will be so much easier to set and achieve goals. They will be more aligned with who you are.
Your daily existence and habits will be better aligned too.
Your life will start getting more intentional and autopilot weakens with intentionality.
Actions to take:
- Get a large notebook, or a large binder with paper and dividers, or use your computer or any other digital device if you prefer for creating your vision book which is essentially a map for your life. Be creative add pictures, visuals, color, etc to it.
- Decide firmly what it is you want for your life and say NO to anything that isn't that. This is one of the tricks to living a good life but it takes guts. Few will do this!
- To help you get crystal clear on the above introspect and decide what you want for the seven major areas of your life:
- Health and Well-being (health is mental, physical, emotional, & sexual)
- Vocation (career, business, your brand)
- Finances (how money works for you)
- Relationships ( family, partner, and other relationships)
- Personal Development (mindset, emotions, and character)
- Social life ( how you show up in the world, contribution, etc)
- Spirituality (connecting to a higher power & beyond)
What I'm suggesting here may seem like a lot of work.
But if you stop and think about your current life, you’ll find you’re already working on all of these areas of your life.
It's just happening automatically.
This is being on autopilot which is such a disempowering way to live.
Study the results your getting in the above seven areas. The results don't lie.
Remember your going to spend the time anyway (as long as you are alive) so why not spend it more intentionally and create a life you love?
You can only do this by creating a life by design not by default.
Switch off auto-pilot and start implementing the strategies suggested here.
You can't help but experience a real shift in your life.
You’ll start to see great progress in your life.
Along the way, you’ll develop your own strategies too from other sources that you come across.
A much stronger sense of self, self-awareness, and, confidence will be developed by you doing this.
This is crucial for living a life by design.
A life by default (on auto-pilot) is one of mediocre and limited potential.
At best an average life.
Why be average when you can be so much more?
We were created with so much potential but most people never access this potential or don’t use it properly.
A life by design is one of true purpose and fulfillment and enables you to create the best version of yourself.
So get in that cockpit and manually fly your plane and empower all areas of your life.
What better time to do it than now with 2023 just around the corner?
What are you waiting for?
To Create a Better You,
Sandra D
P.S. This isn't an affiliate link but a link to the book Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works For You. It’s actually offered as a course at Stanford University. What a brilliant idea!