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Are you truly living?
This is the question Laura Toop Mark Carolan and I tackled on a LinkedIn live last week. And because of the amazing response and interaction we got we’re planning to do a follow up.
It’s such an amazing question and was inspired by one of Mark’s thought provoking posts. What does it mean to truly live? To live truly perhaps? To know yourself and make a conscious decision on who you want to ‘be’. And how do you even do that? How do you know? And how do you find the time to pause and reflect and then change?
We talked a lot about clarity. Which in the busy modern world with all the distractions is more difficult to get than ever. But vital if we want to truly live. Most of us live our lives by default. We end up in careers, we follow paths set out for us by someone else. Our culture gives us a road map and a set of rules to follow to achieve success. But success for who? Defined by who? So many of the men I talk to aren’t happy or fulfilled because they’ve followed this path and realised that it led to a life that wasn’t authentic. Because we all want more than all the trappings that material wealth can bring.
We talked about choice too. Because we all have more choice than seems available to us at any one time. We discussed how we can make conscious choices. Laura talks a lot about making time to pause. It’s vital in the modern world to slow down. To reflect. To contemplate. To think critically.
For me, when looking at your life to assess whether you are ‘truly living’ or simply surviving, or following someone else’s rules, ask yourself these two questions before you make a choice or decision or when assessing your daily habits and routines: ‘who am I being?’ and ‘for what purpose?’. This helps bring that all important clarity to understand your drives and motivations. Keep an eye out on my feed for details of the next session. You won’t want to miss it!
What is autopilot and why are so many men living their lives that way?
This follows on nicely from that session. I went to a new networking event this week. And Ioved it. It was very relaxed and clearly worked very well for all the local business women and men who had been going along for years. It’s called The Hub and is run by the Forth Valley Chamber of Commerce. Each person gets a couple of minutes to explain who they are and what they do. I’ve never used the word autopilot before when talking about my coaching practice. But this is what really resonated with everyone there. So I’ve been talking about it in my content this week.
Autopilot is living unconsciously. So many men wake up one day and think ‘how did I get here?’ when they look at their lives. Our minds are very efficient. If our minds can find an easy way to make a choice or decision, low energy, low effort, it takes it. In order to do that we have two important systems or programmes that run unconsciously. Our values system and our belief system. We all have them. They drive our choices and decisions. So if we are not aware of them those choices are being made unconsciously.
Our values system dictates our priorities, what we dedicate our time, effort, energy and money to. Life is a series of values conflicts. We take action to get results. And in each action we are seeking to extract an emotional value. Things like connection, creativity, satisfaction, contentment. We get to choose a path based on what we value. Our minds create our values system based on which emotional values we choose to prioritise. When we choose one over another our mind banks that in the system. So next time you make a decision it can be more efficient. Most of us create our values system without awareness.
Our belief system dictates how we see ourselves and how we see the world. It’s the lens through which our perspective is shaped. It is mainly formed when we are children, in our formative years. When we have very little life experience. Our minds are meaning making machines. Nothing has meaning in and of itself only the meaning we give it. When we give a situation, event or circumstance meaning we create a belief. As my friend Tom Godfrey says a belief is just a thought we have never questioned. In our early years we are like sponges and we soak up the advice of authority figures. Because we trust them. So we form a set of beliefs based on our education, our upbringing, our religion, what we see, hear, and read and we do so completely unconsciously. Our belief system is what drives our mindset. Our mindset is what drives our actions. And our actions lead to results. If we have beliefs that limit or disempower us, that hold us back we will have a mindset that does the same and we will get results bye don’t really want. Mindset and attitude is everything. It’s how we live. So if you’ve never questioned your beliefs, never cast the light of awareness on them, chances are you’re living by someone else’s rules. Autopilot.
Those two mind systems allied with the daily habits and routines we’ve created which reinforce them form our autopilot. So you can now see why we live on autopilot. And what happens to men is we get driven by cultural pressures. We take on beliefs from society that a man should provide and create and we attach our self worth to how well we do this. We end up chasing status, material wealth, concerning ourselves about how we are ‘seen’, cultivating and managing a ‘reputation’. The more we do this the more masks and personas we create to make life easier and to protect ourselves from failure and mistakes. If we’re seen to fail or make mistakes that reduces our sense of self worth. The worse our self worth gets the less deserving we feel. When we don’t feel deserving we sabotage ourselves.
The antidote to autopilot is self awareness. Shaun Thompson 🧠 says self awareness is one of the greatest skills to learn. And he’s right. Because only with self awareness can we escape autopilot. And create a life that is meaningful and fulfilling. As men we often prioritise career and business success over everything else. I have definitely done that in my life. That means we relegate our wellbeing and it drops down our list of priorities. We sacrifice it. In the pursuit of success which has been defined by others we sacrifice our sleep, our nutrition, our rest and recuperation and all the things that make us well. In fact it’s celebrated and encouraged. And it only leads to one thing, illness or dis-ease. See what I’ve done there, disease comes from not being at ease with who we are.
The other big problem we have as men is dealing with feelings and emotions. Things are changing which is great and I see more and more men being vulnerable in their leadership and developing greater emotional intelligence. We’ve never been taught or shown the value of emotional intelligence. In fact we were taught not to value our emotions at all. Our emotions are vital for understanding ourselves and others. As men we bury, repress and suppress emotions because we don’t find them valuable. And then we miss out on so much of the richness of life. Our emotions are like warning lights on the dashboard of our car. They tell us when something is wrong. If you don’t fix your car when the warning light has come on it will break down. If we don’t have awareness of our emotions, if we don’t acknowledge, accept and process them we will break down too. And we will feel bad. So what do us men do when we feel bad? We booze, eat fast food, gamble, watch porn, take drugs… all incredibly unhealthy habits especially if they go unchecked. This just makes us feel worse. So we do them more. And we end up in a vicious cycle which inevitably leads to dis-ease.
Autopilot is living unconsciously. Asleep at the wheel. Doing things because we always have. Sub-contracting our decision making to someone else. And it only leads to one thing, dis-ease.
Free workshop!
The good news is fellas I’m running a workshop soon which will help you get the clarity and focus you need to not live on autopilot. It will be across two evenings, two short and snappy 45 minute sessions. No big time or money commitment. But the chance to join other men who are driven to change and to live more consciously and effectively. Every one of us wants more time. This workshop will help you prioritise better and therefore make better use of your time. It will help you cultivate self awareness and develop the conviction to start living differently. By your rules. Because it’s interactive and participatory I only have room for ten men. So DM me or email me ASAP to register your interest. It will be the most impactful hour and a half you’ll spend this year.
Thought for this week.
I’ll leave you with this question to get you contemplating and thinking and I’d love to hear from you if you want to share your answer:
If I died tomorrow what would I wish I had done more of?
Have a great week and I’ll see you when I see you.
Prioritise. Optimise. Execute.
100% Clarity 100% Belief 100% Success
Cheers
Dan
