Switch off the autopilot

You’ll be rewarded with calm, structure, clarity — and a strong sense of agency.

How fast is too fast?

In London, where everything happens at lightning speed, it's easy to forget what slow feels like.

If you order something on Amazon in the morning, you'll often get it before the end of the day. Trains on the Victoria tube line run every 100 seconds during peak hours, making it the most frequent train service in the world. The average 5G network speed hovers around 250 Mbps, which is significantly faster than most big cities in Europe and equivalent to NYC.

Everyone is used to everything happening at pace, which is super practical in many cases and unfortunately also triggers frustration when things don't get done as quickly as expected. Waiting three minutes for the tube to come in feels slightly annoying, and having to stand by for thirty minutes until customer service finally picks up your call feels almost disrespectful.

Unfortunately this goes both ways. 

You're expected to do everything quickly too — and aren’t always seen as a human with a conscious experience of the world by others around you.

This becomes terribly obvious at work, when interacting with customers and colleagues. You can be contacted at all times via phone, email, Zoom and Slack — and are often expected to cater to other people’s needs before your own.

If you let it, the world will relentlessly fill your head with things you could or should do. For most of us this makes it impossible to reflect on whether we still want to be doing those things.

At work I felt like a hyper-productive machine. I had twelve meetings lined up every day with hardly any breathing space between them. Somehow I also managed to respond promptly to any important request that was sent my way. 

In the process, I would forget to eat lunch, stand up from my seat, or look away from my screen. I would forget to thank my partner when he brought me tea, and sometimes I’d even forget to go to the bathroom.

At some point I realised my life had been on autopilot for a while. 

See the forks in the road in Tim Urban’s sketch below? I couldn’t point to any that I’d consciously spotted for myself in recent years, which meant I likely hadn’t consciously made any big decisions on how to orient my life in that time.

I got really worried that I’d fully lost my ability to consciously shape my life in any meaningful way, so I decided to take a sabbatical in 2022 and reclaim my agency.

Not everyone needs a clean break like me.

Some people are superheroes. 

They can dim the noisiness of the world and are able to consciously orient their work and lives as and when an opportunity to do so comes up. Going back to Tim Urban’s sketch, those people not only see the forks in the road, they also choose which way they want to go every time.

But most people don’t see the forks — and those who do often don’t have the headspace to decide which way to go, so they end up going whichever way feels most familiar.

If that’s you and you don’t want to run your business or live your life on autopilot in a world that is set up to keep you busy all the time, you have two options.

Option 1: The universe takes action

At some point something happens that makes you snap out of autopilot mode. 

That mode is pretty strong, though, and it has a lot of inertia… so that ‘something’ needs to be big enough to cause a serious disturbance in your routines 

— and unfortunately, big doesn’t always mean good. 

Maybe you have a health issue that keeps you away from work for two months. Or a competitor that launches a product that’s putting one of your major business lines at risk of collapse.

Scary. Yet this can often be turned to your advantage.

Once your autopilot mode is switched off, not only can you pour all your energy into addressing the disturbance, you can also use this forced break as an opportunity to assess how well your autopilot mode and routines were serving you. Maybe the autopilot mode is what made you blind to early warning signs of the health issue or your competitor’s moves, in which case it’s worth you regaining some consciousness so it doesn’t happen again.

I don’t think relying on the universe to intervene is a reliable option, though. It might force you to wake up, but the price could be too high. Instead, take control before something goes wrong.

Option 2: You take action — and create a container for your own renewal

Instead of waiting for the universe to magically intervene, you make a proactive and conscious decision to switch off your autopilot mode so you can figure out what you want your path to look like in the future. 

You create a container for (your) renewal, for yourself or your business.

What does it look like?

Containers for renewal take many forms, depending on your needs and circumstances.

If you’re looking to reorient your life, a container for renewal might be as small as working one day a month with a coach to reflect and recalibrate, or as big as a year-long sabbatical where you experiment with new ways of being and working.

For business leaders, a container for renewal might look like one of those two-day strategic acceleration interventions I offer, where we work together to figure out what the right way forward is for their business and how to get there effectively.

Whether it’s a small, recurring reflection or a deep, strategic intervention, these containers should be designed to meet you where you are and guide you toward where you want to be.

When do I open up a container?

Open it the moment you realise you’re getting regularly distracted by a somewhat nagging feeling that something in your routine feels off. This may show up as you feeling curious, uncomfortable or disconnected. 

Then close the container the moment you have enough clarity and energy to take action in a way that feels aligned with what your gut wants to do. Don’t stay in the container for too long or you’ll get stuck in limbo.

How do I set up a container so I get what I need?

Set it up so it gives you a sense of calm and groundedness. Away from the expectations placed by your routines and the outside world, 

Shape it with just the right kind and amount of structure to outline the problem you’re trying to solve and organise the thoughts that are already buzzing in your head. Find ways to inject fresh perspectives into your worldview to build on those existing thoughts in novel ways and play around with possible solutions to your problem. The further you are from the solution, the more you’ll need to make space for divergent thinking and experimentation.

Once you feel like you’ve played enough, it’s time to converge. Using your up-to-date views, reflect on whether you want to make any changes to your current situation — and if so how.

Importantly, take action while the decision is fresh. The energy you’ve just built up by getting clarity on the way forward is incredibly valuable. Use that energy and start making the changes you want to see!

Sure, you might miss a couple of emails while you do this, but instead you’ll be rewarded with calm, structure, clarity — and a strong sense of agency.

The emails can wait.

Switch off the autopilot. Decide what you want your future to look like.

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More about my strategic acceleration work with businesses: I work with high-achieving solopreneurs and start-up CEOs who want 100% clarity on the way forward for their business and are ready to get things done. Commit to two strategic acceleration sessions with me and watch your levels of clarity, energy and executive function increase tenfold.

More about sabbaticals: whether you're thinking of going on an extended break from work or you’ve already taken the leap, you are right in the middle of an experience that can transform your life in a meaningful way. It’s exciting of course, but it can also feel scary, lonely and a bit overwhelming at times.

I’ve created two playbooks to help you on your journey:

• Thinking of a sabbatical will give you everything you need to consciously decide if going on an extended break from work is the right move for you

• On Sabbatical is a self-paced digital experience with insight, structure and resources to turn your sabbatical into a life-changing experience