Are you living on autopilot?

One of the truths we’ve come to understand at Progressfull, is that we can all benefit from choosing to see things a little differently

Human performance expert Stefan Falk, highlights that “sinking into boredom” is a downside of having an "autopilot" mind-set. When we deal with the everyday, familiar tasks and activities our brain conserves energy by moving to “autopilot” mode. When we are in this mode not only is it easier to sink into boredom, we also miss what’s new, what’s different and what’s noteworthy in the daily and familiar

Most of us have lives that are embedded in the familiar daily and weekly routines and rhythms. As a result our brain's autopilot can be restricting our perspectives and the opportunities for growth that are all around us

Even when facing the most tedious tasks, ones we have completed a thousand times over, we can cultivate a sense of curiosity and build our perspective by tuning-in to the small things that make the context or the task different. This more nuanced approach will build a growth mind-set and our muscle memory will be primed to spot different perspectives and new things in the familiar. You’ll surprise yourself how much you will start to see new perspectives, different angles and diverse opportunities in more and more things you experience

One of the key ways we can move from an autopilot to curiosity mind-set today and start to build new, different and diverse perspectives, is to welcome feedback

It’s no secret that most people actually dread feedback and therefore lack the skills to broaden their perspective, yet feedback is widely acknowledged as an essential part of innovation, improvement and progress

Feedback stops us from living on autopilot and shapes us into the people we are, or want to become - at work, at home, in our whole life 

In fact, without feedback we can become extremely stuck in our ways, we often lack the ability to look at ourselves and our situation and see this different perspective. For example, one of the best pieces of feedback I ever received was when I was leading a large marketing team through some big challenges the business was going through. One of my mentors on the board taught me about the importance of inspiring people – especially when they may be feeling disillusioned and are doubting themselves. It’s true to say this feedback illuminated a completely different perspective for me. Now I believe that inspiring people is one of the most important things a leader can do to be successful and I honestly don’t know where I would be today without that feedback

Knowing what I now know, I realise that three things were fundamental at that time. The skill with which my mentor delivered the feedback, my openness to accepting this new perspective, and lastly, what this then meant for my team and my own career path

This feedback gave me a new and different perspective which meant I could create a more inspiring and motivating perspective for my team. In doing so they were able to see different perspectives themselves – a new and much needed energy was released and hope was created

In reality, we often don’t welcome feedback because it can appear to be quite binary and performance specific– i.e. something is either good or bad, right or wrong. This type of feedback can be helpful in some areas, yet feedback which is more about sharing a different perspective can often make the biggest difference in delivering successful results because it can be more motivational. Feedback which is about sharing a different perspective is often more about making progress and unlocking potential than the black and white of hitting specific targets

So why do we so often operate on autopilot then? Well, one universal truth is this: we as human beings are often bad at self-awareness. Research shows that although 95% of us think we are self-aware, only 10 to 15% of us actually are. What this means is that in order to stop being on autopilot and unlock our potential we need those around us to help us see the different perspectives available. Building our strengths and helping us to spot and address growth opportunities when we feel stuck

Imagine being part of a self-aware team that perpetuates an open feedback culture to the benefit of others – at work and at home. Imagine the innovation, improvement and progress you could make – wouldn’t that be great, even transformational in some areas?  

What to do then? 

To help you gain a new perspective on your potential we created an Upskill (our name for a course/masterclass) called Welcoming Feedback. Welcoming Feedback includes step-by-step online videos, 121 Mentoring, bespoke Journals, private podcasts and purposeful self-reflection exercises designed to ensure you unlock Welcoming Feedback as a new perspective, so you live a life of progress, a life of new perspectives about your own potential 

We've picked the best insights, frameworks and tools from behavioural psychology, neuroscience and philosophy to create the models and content in Welcoming Feedback, enabling you to embrace, usher in, roll out the red carpet for diverse perspectives and feedback conversations with confidence and curiosity 

So how about today you start to see new perspectives, different angles and diverse opportunities in the familiar and everyday, start welcoming feedback

Discover more about Welcoming Feedback