Your Brain Is On Autopilot – Episode #724

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins takes on one of the most common laments he has heard in his practice: why do I do what I do when I know what I know? His answer is good news. Your brain is not malfunctioning. It is doing something it is remarkably good at, which is automating whatever you have already practiced. Neural pathways turn repeated experiences into cruise control, the same way walking, typing, or driving a car become automatic without a conscious thought.

 

That same process runs on our thoughts. We carry practiced ways of judging our circumstances, ourselves, and the people around us, and we have rehearsed some of those patterns thousands of times over decades. So when an old thought shows up on its own, there is no reason for guilt or shame. Familiar does not mean true. It means practiced. Dr. Paul introduces metacognition, thinking about thinking, as the place to start, because it creates a little space and that space is where choice lives. He also offers a shift in language: instead of "I'm just a negative person" or "I'm just an anxious person," try "I have become very practiced at noticing things negatively." A practiced pattern can be practiced differently.

 

To show what reprogramming takes, he describes the scrambled keyboards he brings to corporate trainings, with the keys popped off and put back in the wrong places. Most people need about forty-five seconds to type their own first name on one. Nobody would bother learning that layout without a reason, and that is the point. Two things are required to build a new neural pathway: meaning or purpose, and repetition. Meaning is essential but not enough on its own. You still have to take the keyboard home and put in the reps. He also reminds listeners not to confuse unfamiliar with unnatural, and points back to episode 721, "Now do it again tomorrow."

 

The episode closes with a question and an invitation. What are you practicing? Notice one thought pattern today that seems to run automatically, without beating yourself up, and ask whether it is a pattern you want to keep practicing. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. October's theme on Positives is the brain, "the owner's manual." Positives is built for transformational learning through daily, weekly, and monthly practices, with the daily ones starting at three minutes a day. There's a free sample at liveonpurposeradio.com/positives. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

What is Live on Purpose Radio?

Live On Purpose Radio features principles of prosperity, abundance, and positive psychology to help you create and live the life you love. As you listen to Live On Purpose Radio, you’ll hear powerful stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Dr. Paul Jenkins interviews inspiring people about principles that empower them to live on purpose. Living on purpose means that you have a purpose, and that you do it intentionally. Live on Purpose Radio, LiveOnPurposeRadio.com, started in 2007 and has been helping listeners worldwide overcome the effects of noxious negativity with a regular dose of Pathological Positivity. Share Live On Purpose Radio with anyone you know who would appreciate a dose of positivity in their life. Visit DrPaulJenkins.com for more resources to Live On Purpose.

This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 724. Your brain is on autopilot. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, and welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink who expands your life. Your brain is on autopilot. This is good news. Your brain is trying to help, but it also creates some problems, doesn't it? One of the most common laments I've heard in my practice over all these years, Why do I do what I do when I know what I know? We're familiar with that. Right? Why do I keep doing that thing? I know better. We often get really frustrated because we keep thinking the same thoughts, reacting the same ways, or returning to the same old habits even though we know better. We might turn those patterns into an identity statement. Something like, well, I'm just a negative person or I'm just really anxious or I'm not very good at relationships. But what if your brain isn't malfunctioning? What if it's actually doing something that's... It's remarkably good at? And that is automating what you've already practiced. See, neural pathways and neuroplasticity give us a useful way to understand how repeated experiences and behaviors become increasingly automatic. It's kind of like the cruise control or autopilot for our brain. And that's really helpful. Imagine having to consciously figure out or think about walking, speaking, typing, or driving. These are things that we've practiced repeatedly enough that we can put it on autopilot, and we don't have to think about it. Your brain is in charge of everything. And because of that, you'd go absolutely bonkers if you had to consciously pay attention to everything that was going on. Your brain puts practiced patterns on autopilot so you can use your conscious attention somewhere else. And here's the hopeful part of that. What has been programmed can be reprogrammed. So let's look at this automation process for a minute. Some examples. I I already mentioned walking. Oh, also the language that you speak, your native language, driving a vehicle, playing the piano, brushing your teeth, typing or keyboarding without thinking about the individual letters. When you type your name, do you spell it? Now think about that. You know how to type your name, but typically you don't spell it. You just have a series of keystrokes that come so automatically to you that you don't even have to think about the letters that you're typing. It's just automated. Sometimes we call this muscle memory and that's a little bit of a misnomer because your muscles don't really have memory. That's part of a brain process and I'm referring to this as a neural pathway. Whatever we do repeatedly, the brain will actually create physical neurological structures within your nervous system to automate that process, to make it more automatic so you don't even have to think about it. And that's a really great thing that our brain does for us. Sometimes we forget that our brain is doing this also for thoughts because we have practiced programmed ways of evaluating our circumstances, Judging our life, ourselves, the people around us. How we think about ourselves, our self-concept. Interpreting or creating stories about what other people are doing. How we anticipate or predict the future. See, all of these things get programmed in to our neural pathways, how we react to the circumstances of our lives. And some of those patterns have been rehearsed thousands of times over decades. So when an old thought shows up automatically, there's no need to be surprised about that. And enough with the guilt and shame too. Instead of beating ourselves up for having that same reaction or that same thought, maybe we can have a little more grace for ourselves and realize, oh, that's my programming. Familiar doesn't necessarily mean true or correct. Sometimes it just means this is what I've practiced. This is what I'm used to. Now awareness. You've heard me say before that awareness precedes choice. You can't intentionally redirect a pattern that you don't even realize is running. So a powerful concept of psychology that I often start with when I'm doing trainings is metacognition. Now that's a fancy psychobabble word but if we break it down cognition simply means thinking. Metacognition is a higher level. It's thinking about thinking. Notice that you can do this. And metacognition is awesome because it creates a little space and in that space is where choice lives. So start noticing these thought patterns. Actually think about your thinking. Observe it a little bit. And it's okay for you to notice that... Oh, there I go again. And maybe even having that thought. Oh, there I go again. Having that same thought. Oh, that's the story I usually tell myself. And that's the goal here with metacognition. Oh, that's how I usually predict the future. You know, the bad things are gonna happen. Or that's how I've practiced evaluating this kind of situation before. This is an important place to start distinguishing our identity, who we are, from our programming, which we come by honestly. Think about your language for a minute. You didn't choose to speak your native language, did you? No. You were programmed by people who didn't even give you a choice. Well, you were programmed in a lot of other things too. So instead of thinking, oh, I'm such a negative person. Just consider this for a minute. I've become very practiced at noticing and evaluating things negatively. Okay. Do you feel that little shift? Or instead of I'm just a really anxious person, perhaps you could think instead I've practiced certain kinds of predictions and evaluations so often that my mind goes there very quickly and naturally. This is almost magical. That shift matters because identity sounds and feels permanent. It's like, well, it's just who I am. It's just how I'm wired. Right? It's not how you're wired. It's how you're programmed. A practiced pattern can be practiced differently. Let me say that again. A practiced pattern can be practiced differently. And I'm not here to tell you what to think. I don't have that kind of authority. I just want you to see that you are. And probably the first victory here is simply becoming conscious that thinking is happening and starting to watch how it's happening. Having a lot of grace for ourselves because however we're thinking is exactly what we're used to. It's whatever we've already practiced and been programmed with. So maybe we can start to ask what is my current autopilot doing? And why would changing this matter enough for me to put energy into it? When I do corporate training, sometimes I'll take a keyboard along. And I've got a couple of these now where I've just taken old surplus keyboards, computer keyboards. I take a butter knife, pop up all the keys, and put them on in different places. And then the challenge to type your name using that keyboard. And it's not connected to anything. It's just an exercise. Right? But can you imagine trying to type your name on a scrambled keyboard? But wait. This... And this is such a compelling experience because it's hard. It takes on the average about forty five seconds for someone to type their first name using my scrambled keyboard. That's crazy. But it calls to mind very quickly what's... What these neural pathways do for us. The keyboard that you usually use is also scrambled. It starts with a q, but you can type your name very fluently on that. Why? Because you practiced it. Does that mean that that's a a correct keyboard? No. It's scrambled, and it's scrambled for some interesting reasons that no longer really apply to the way that we do word processing. But without getting into all the details about that, just notice that you have trained yourself to type on a scrambled keyboard. Notice this. This is so powerful. Would you ever want to learn to type on my scrambled keyboard? No. That would be an enormous waste of time because there is no utility for that. There's no reason. There's no meaning or purpose behind it. And this is a clue. Could you learn how to type on my keyboard? Yes, you could. What if I offered you a $500,000 to learn how to type on my keyboard? Oh, well the meaning just changed. The utility of learning that task just changed. So this is to illuminate the obvious to you. Meaning, purpose is absolutely essential but not sufficient. Because even if you decided to learn to type on my scrambled keyboard, what's the problem? Well, you can't just decide to type on it. You have to take it home and put in the reps. So two things are required to reprogram and to create an autopilot, a new neural pathway, meaning or purpose and repetition or practice. So when we identify something that we wanna change about our thinking, or about how we handle relationships, or about the stories that are generating our current state of mental health or illness. Why would changing this matter enough for me to put the work into it? And what is it that matters that much to you? How about peace in your heart and mind? How about confidence in your roles and relationships? How about becoming the parent or the spouse or the leader that you promised yourself you would be, but the old patterns are getting in the way? We can agree with a better idea when we encounter it. We can say, oh, that would be better. I I teach a lot about positive psychology and positivity. And a lot of people when they see that for the first time, it's like, yeah, I'd really like to be a more positive person. Okay. Awesome. That's kinda like saying I'd really like to speak German or I'd really like to play the piano. The the the meaning has to get turned on somehow and then we get to put in the reps, then we get to practice again and again and again. A couple of episodes ago, if you go back to episode seven twenty one, Now do it again tomorrow. I I got into that in this episode because the old pathway is going to come naturally to us. It's familiar. It's what we're used to, and our brain is basically lazy and loyal. It wants to keep doing what it's used to, whether that's the best option or not. So don't confuse unfamiliar with unnatural. When something is unfamiliar to us, it doesn't feel right. In fact, I've had a lot of clients over the years say, well, it feels like I'm lying to myself, you know, when we're practicing positive thinking. What they don't realize is they've been lying to themselves all along, and I don't necessarily like the word lying. They've been attached to a particular version of the narrative that is so familiar to them that it feels right. I even had somebody once in a training say, you know, doc, all this positive thinking, this is all great, but I'm more of a realist. And, really, what they meant is I really prefer to think of things more negatively. It feels more natural to me. It feels more real. Somebody else in that same session suggested, hey. How about you become an equal opportunity realist and give just as much time to the positive possibilities as you do to the negative ones? But that didn't really feel natural to them. So over time, intentional practice can make a different response increasingly more available and familiar to our brain as we begin to develop those neural pathways. Until it's automated, it feels like work. So I have a question for you, dear listener. What are you practicing? I invite you to notice one thought pattern today that seems to run automatically. And don't beat yourself up about it. Just notice it. And then ask yourself, is this a pattern I want to keep practicing? Making it a thought separates it from your identity. And you have thoughts, but you're not your thoughts. You're the one that can notice and observe those thoughts and make some choices. You're the agent in the machine. This month, I I think I've mentioned several times if you've been listening to the podcast very long at all. We've launched a new platform called Positives. In fact, you can buzz over to positives, that's plural, positives.life,not.com. We're trying to create a positive life. Right? Positives.life. And you'll see what we're doing over there. We have monthly patterns and October's pattern or topic is the brain. The owner's manual. Understanding how the brain works is so useful and it puts us in a position to start directing where our brain energy goes. Sometimes our thoughts are working against us And either you drive your thoughts or your thoughts drive you. We're diving into that this month over at positives. October's focus on the brain and neural pathways gives people a higher level of choice over operating the equipment of their own brain. So I invite you to come explore the platform. We've also got a free positivity power pack for you, and that'll give you a nice sample of what it's like to be inside. You know, this is the first time in my career that we have cracked into the other kind of learning. Transformational learning is done through repeated practice. And in psychology and even in public speaking, we're really good at turning the lights on for people, having those breakthrough moments. At the time of this recording, I'm just preparing another keynote for the, Utah Municipal Clerks Association meeting. I'll be going to their conference, and I know we're gonna turn the lights on. People are going to see, oh, yes. This is so cool. And then we go right back to exactly what we've already practiced. What's in our neural pathways? So with the Positives platform, we're finally breaking into the transformational aspect of learning. We have daily, weekly, monthly practices and rhythms that you can get into, and the daily start at just three minutes a day. It's moving the needle for our members. And, that's why I wanted to invite you to come over and check that out. Again, it's positives.life. I hope you come and see what we're doing. Your autopilot was trained, and that's good news because it means you can participate intentionally in what you train it to do next. Did you get what you came for? I hope you did. It's time to go apply what we've learned and live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.