The Power of Automaticity: How to Pause or Amplify It in Work and Life
Are you ever in a conversation and realize that your mind has completely drifted away? Do you feel like you’re going through the motions in life, without really being present? If so, you may be experiencing automaticity – and it’s more common than you think. In this special bonus episode of The Squeeze, we’re diving into the topic of automaticity and exploring how it can impact your relationships, work, and overall quality of life. Join me as we uncover the pros and cons of automaticity, and learn practical strategies for managing it effectively in all areas of your life.
Tune in as I explore how it can negatively impact relationships by causing a lack of conscious engagement. I also discuss the unique distinctions between conscious and unconscious automaticity, how to pause or amplify automaticity depending on the circumstance, and how to live a life by design, rather than by default.
And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
What automaticity is defined as.
What the pros and cons are of automaticity.
How it impacts relationships.
The distinctions between conscious and unconscious automaticity.
The inherent challenges with unconscious automaticity.
How to work with automaticity to pause or amplify it.
What Was Mentioned:
Psychology of Automaticity by TM Wheatley and DM Wenger
The Leader Habit: Master the Skills You Need to Lead–in Just Minutes a Day by Martin Lanik
Saying What’s Real: Seven Keys to Authentic Communication and Relationship Success by Susan Campbell
The Thinking Trap (LinkedIn)
What Is Automaticity? by Kendra Cherry
The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“Once you scratch the surface, there is a lot more than meets the eye.” – Christina Sestan
“But with nuance, we can actually hang around long enough to have an interesting conversation that might change both our minds.” – Christina Sestan
“When one steps back to consider the wide range of unconscious automatic responses that are present in any relationship, is it any wonder there is so much conflict?” – Christina Sestan
“It’s important to understand that unconscious automaticity can arise from our own internal experiences as well as our experiences of the external world.” – Christina Sestan
“Have you ever had an experience where too much thinking actually throws you off?” – Christina Sestan
“Overall, we risk living more by default than by design.” – Christina Sestan
“But the good news is that no matter where you would rate your partnership, helping it to thrive again doesn’t actually take that much effort. It’s just that the effort it does take may seem strange.” – Christina Sestan
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Speaker 1 0:01
Hey, it's Christina. Thanks for joining us. And welcome to the Squeeze. When one steps back to consider the wide range of unconscious automatic responses that are present in any relationship, is it any wonder there's so much conflict? I Correct. Welcome, welcome to a special bonus edition of The Squeeze. This episode is being specifically and specially recorded to coincide with a talk I'm giving today to a group of people in the municipal safety industry in Vancouver, these are the folks who are responsible for your safety and well-being in the workplace, and the topic today is an important one for them and for anyone listening. I hope you enjoy this bonus episode, and hey, a shout out to all of you who are working to keep the rest of us safe. Thank you for that. As I set off down my latest research rabbit hole, I was confident that I was going to have my assumptions confirmed about the detrimental nature of the topic I'd chosen to explore. In this case, automaticity, I figured that whatever I read would reflect my previously held convictions about the negative impact of automaticity on conscious engagement and interactions with others, it's commonplace in my facilitated sessions, after all, for me to make reference to the concept in terms of the negative impact it can have on relationships. Those times when we're not quite there, not quite tuned in to whoever is sitting across from us, speaking, nodding, but not really listening. And, of course, these issues do exist. They haven't gone anywhere, but I will definitely be referencing some of the attendant costs in those situations. But I'm also pretty happy to report that my research suggested some intriguing possibilities between automaticity and reaching the proverbial flow state, the key, however, is being conscious about engaging autopilot. That's the difference. Nevertheless, I'm going to dive in, and I'll share my findings with you. Ultimately, what I think might be most useful in this exploration is a nuanced approach that can be used to prime ourselves and foster the preconditions to stimulate valuable automatic responses. I'll say that in English now. We can teach our mind to become more automatic about the things that matter. So that's what today is about, diving into this thing we call automaticity. It's really just a fancy word for doing something without realizing you're doing it, or going through the motions when your mind is elsewhere. We spend all kinds of time in this state, and depending on the context, we could be generating positive, neutral, or possibly negative results. It's all about when and where you apply it. There are loads of examples of everyday automaticity that you will relate to. Just think about something you do every single day: brushing your teeth, showering, driving your car, sometimes referred to as highway hypnosis, and even walking. So, essentially, we're able to perform the task without having to focus our awareness on every detail. When I'm brushing my teeth, for example, I'm not thinking now I'm going to brush the outside of my upper teeth, and now I'm going to spit. Now I'm going to rinse. As I'm brushing my teeth, my mind is likely somewhere else, perhaps even planning my day ahead tomorrow. To frame up this topic, I'm going to look at it from both the experience of the person in autopilot, but also the people around the person in autopilot. In other words, how automaticity affects relationships. To start, I think it makes sense to lay a bit more of a foundational understanding, because, like everything, once you scratch the surface, there's a lot more than meets the eye, and approaching any topic like this is essential for a more nuanced understanding. Because if you haven't already heard me say this in previous podcasts, the world is gray. Sorry, you binary folks, while black and white might be your preferred way of navigating life, it is a fairly hapless endeavor that usually leads to much frustration and exhaustion from holding your position and trying to prove you are right, but with nuance we can actually hang around long enough to have an interesting conversation that might well change both our minds, so let's start with a fairly simple distinction between unconscious and conscious automaticity that I'm lifting from T M Wheatley and D M Wenger's article, Psychology of Automaticity in Action. Unconscious automaticity operates independently. Of conscious control. Okay, sure. Sounds obvious.
Speaker 1 5:03
Unconscious automaticity is primed by an environmental stimulus that biases our response. In other words, the stimulus leads us to behave in a certain way. And remember, this is all outside of our conscious awareness. A stimulus could be anything from a facial expression, think furrowed brow, to Brussels sprouts, think stinky smell, or to a horror movie, think guy standing behind the babysitter. Our responses to all of these situations are automatic. In the first scenario, we may automatically ask what's wrong with the Brussels sprouts. We may automatically wrinkle our nose or roll our eyes, and in the horror movie example, we may automatically flinch. Okay, pretty straightforward, right? Well, sure, as long as the stimulus is something more, shall we say, benign. The challenges, however, start when the stimulus is a little more controversial in nature, less politically correct, or at the very least considerate of difference. What if the stimulus is an elderly person, for instance, and your automatic response is to start speaking in a kind of high-pitched, patronizing sounding voice, this could be problematic for pretty obvious reasons. Or what if the stimulus is someone crying? This is a super common stimulus, by the way, and you respond with anxiety and find yourself breaking the land speed record to get a box of Kleenex, whether the other person wants them or not. And what if the stimulus is someone's race or gender or sexual orientation or socioeconomic status, and your responses are not how shall I say edifying? Are you starting to see the inherent challenges with unconscious automaticity? Have you already thought of the word stereotype yet? Because I have, and if you have too, we're on the right track. We're certainly in the same unconscious neighborhood anyway. Stereotyping is a form of automaticity that exists at an unconscious level, directing our behavior according to however the stimulus was primed. In other words, the kind of messaging or experiences we receive in early childhood about the particular stimulus in question, and of course, stereotyping is just painting everyone in the group with the same brush. Wheatley and Wenger argue, quote, much of our behavior in social life is unconsciously automatic, we respond automatically and unthinkingly to facial expressions, body gestures, etc. End quote. When one steps back to consider the wide range of unconscious automatic responses that are present in any relationship, is it any wonder there's so much conflict or so much energy spent sweeping said conflict under the rug, take your pick, but it turns out that Wheatley and Wanger offer us some reassurance as well, namely that if we have the time, the inclination, and the ability, we can consciously correct those reactions, which is great news, of course. The opposite is also true, and I think there are probably legions of blissfully ignorant folks wandering around unaware of the havoc they may be wrecking, but let's let's just put a pin in that for a moment and shift over to conscious automaticity. When we're consciously automatic, as I've already covered in my opening gamut, we know what we're doing as we're doing it, driving, showering, etc. There's no need to think about it after we've launched it. I turn the key in the ignition and off I go to work. I arrive and often have no recollection of the drive. That's what I meant earlier when I used the phrase I don't know if you heard it, highway hypnosis, no con commentary is needed throughout when we are consciously automatic. Conscious automaticity forms from significant repetition, think driving lessons, but it goes beyond to a place of automatic activation of norms in the larger world around us. Not that this isn't the case with driving, it's just less pronounced. So it turns out that just from living we learn what is likely to happen in the situations we experience, from the grocery store to the airport security lineup to a rock concert, and how we need to behave in order to uphold a pattern. Automatic norms are activated when we've learned the proper assumption of the situation. Imagine life without conscious automaticity for a second. Every situation would start to feel like the wild west. Imagine someone coming and standing right next to you at the. Atm, imagine deciding to hand your money to the checkout clerk at the grocery store when you first walk in the door.
Speaker 1 10:06
Imagine if everyone just left their cars in the middle of the road, or on the curb, or front lawn. Imagine climbing up on a stage at a rock concert. No, wait, forget that last one. The point is that by engaging in willing automatic behavior, we make the world a smoother place for everyone. The grocery carts, they're where we expect to find them. People stay politely back when we're taking money from an ATM, and we start undressing, well, I mean, taking our shoes off anyway, before we walk through security scanners at the airport, and life is good, because life is made up of a series of social contracts that we agree to in return for a level of predictability and security. I love Wheatley and Wenger's description of this process, quote, a chunking together of former stray details into a fluid sequence that can be set off with only a brief conscious thought rather than a continuing commentary of them. End quote. In the book, The Leader Habit: Master the Skills You Need to Lead, Martin Lanik points out that 43 to 47% of behavior is habitual and processed automatically. You see, I was right about the legions of automatons trudging through life in an episode of The Walking Dead. Okay, too much, too much. Anyway, Lanik describes the brain's creation of automaticity this way: quote, the brain refines its mental model by cutting out unnecessary processes and eliminating energy waste, end quote. It sounds like the Marie Kondo of neurology, and while we're still in the realm of making distinctions between conscious and unconscious automaticity, let me just expand on something before we move on. Clearly, past conditioning and trauma play a role in the development of unconscious automaticity, as I've already alluded to with things like stereotypes, and even though we can be very intentional about seeking to uncover those reactions, which I'll talk about in the section of the podcast on managing and working with automaticity, it's important to understand that unconscious automaticity can arise right there from our own internal experiences as well as our experiences of the external world, things like overwhelm or being outside comfort zones can trigger automatic defense mechanisms that suddenly kick in to manage the level of anxiety we may feel, and we may be completely oblivious to them. So, when it comes to the practice of tracking your unconscious automaticity, just keep this in mind, I've already talked about unconscious and conscious automaticity, but I also want to point to something a little more subtle that seems to inhabit the space between conscious and unconscious. From her book, Saying What's Real, author Susan Campbell describes something called the unconscious intent to control the reason I refer to it as living somewhere between conscious and unconscious is that it can be fairly easy to notice when you're engaging this way, and by virtue, once you notice it, the steps to shifting it become clear, unlike some of the deeper and resistant stimuli from our past conditioning as well, the results can be extremely profound and very worth our efforts to change. Campbell offers us a few scenarios that reflect a level of relational automaticity that I think exacts a big toll, certainly on the degree of trust and connection we experience, and that affects our relationships and our partnerships. As I list a few scenarios, ask yourself if you've experienced any of these examples, and if so, what might be behind your willing and somewhat unconscious automaticity to do and say these things. What might be at stake for you? So, have you ever found yourself trying to appear more together than you really are? Have you ever lied to protect someone's feelings? Have you ever been nice or agreeable just to avoid a hassle? What about staying silent to avoid a conflict, and have you ever made up stories or assumptions instead of having to live with the uncertainty of a situation?
Speaker 1 14:30
It would be very strange if you didn't relate to at least a few of these approaches, and that's because, unfortunately, they're very common, and I would argue even sort of normalized within our Western culture to greater or lesser degrees, they are all automatic patterns for feeling safer and in control, but as you start to unpack the cost of engaging this way, it often becomes about discovering that the short term gain of the moment winds up in the long term pain. From a life with less trust. Hey, you're listening to the Squeeze, and if you like what you're hearing, there's a whole world of citrus couching to discover. We've got an online leadership program, it's called Citrus You, and it features those three key tools you need to be a better leader, well, to be a better human, we also have a number of mini learning bundles that you can get into, and there's plenty more. If you're interested, you can follow us on Instagram, or check out our website@www.citruscoaching.com And the show resumes now, you so we've already covered some of the territory of the pros and cons somewhat implicitly in this episode. I think that being more explicit can provide you with more motivation, frankly, to tackle any of the shifts that you may want to make. It's probably that some of your conscious automaticity is actually costing you, and if you become more aware of that fact, you know it could be somewhat disconcerting, but also somewhat motivating. So, I'm going to start with the pros first. So, what exactly does one get out of the many, many conscious automatic patterns that we participate in? I'm talking about things, remember, like brushing our teeth, or unloading the dishwasher, or even something like locking the doors at night, some are obvious in that automaticity can be incredibly efficient from an energetic point of view. The tasks I'm referencing require minimal attention, and then, of course, our mind is freed up to focus elsewhere, and while it could sound like I'm encouraging you to multitask, which, if you listen to my earlier podcast on time management, you're probably thinking, wait, wait, hang on, didn't she just debunk multitasking? Well, yes, I did, and while automaticity shares some territory with multitasking, or let's say that it's more accurately to call it task shifting, there are also some key differences that are worth unpacking, so conscious automaticity - it's, it's kind of like starting a washing machine cycle, like once you push start, guess what, you can walk away and the machine just does its thing. You can look at emails or vacuum or take the dog for a walk, or whatever. There's no degradation to the quality of the wash cycle without you there watching the socks and underwear go round and round in their bubbly little universe beyond the little glass window must be like looking out the port holes on the ISS. Sorry, sorry, I'm back, but and this is a very important but if driving or other higher risk activities is the conscious automaticity that we're talking about by their very nature, there are simply greater risks if any of your mental capacity is busy being tied up elsewhere. It's not like you're risking your life if you try to write an email in your head while brushing your teeth, but with driving, there is a real methodology behind something like the campaign to decrease distracted driving. We already know that the more you split your focus across multiple activities, the greater the likelihood of errors. All I'm saying is think about what those actual errors might mean in terms of real world impact. It is true that your washing machine could overflow, and if you weren't there watching, well, you'd have more water to clean up, but the actuarial tables barely note the risk, because it's not that likely. Okay, back to a few more pros of automaticity. While engaging in automatic functions, we don't need to consciously guide or monitor ourselves, which actually allows us to get things done fast. In some cases, we can actually increase our accuracy through conscious automaticity, and this probably sounds a bit counterintuitive, but have you ever had an experience where too much thinking actually throws you off?
Speaker 1 18:49
And by the way, this is a bit of a foreshadow to the potential relationship between automaticity and flow, which I'm kind of excited to expand on a bit later in the episode, and finally we may experience a useful kind of immunity to environmental stressors when we're in automaticity, and this just means that I may be kind of blissfully unaware of the angst everyone around me is experiencing over the recent announcement of a high-profile termination, because I'm kind of lost in autopilot cleaning up digital files on my computer or something like that. What about the cons? Yeah, there's several. Not all that surprising to me, because I've seen many of these in action. It's why I was so certain at the outset of this episode that the research would confirm my earlier convictions about the negative impact of automaticity. I just wasn't prepared for the aforementioned pros when we learn things well enough to do them automatically, it's such a slippery slope to inflexible positionality. These automatic habits can and do make us more rigid and less able to pivot if people or situations require it. For example, if we learn to drive in a truck and now we own. An eight cylinder Ford f1 50, we may be reticent to abandon our preferred vehicle, even though the gas prices mean we're paying three times as much a month, or if we've been a disciplined keto eater for so long that we don't know what to do with ourselves when our doctor contacts us, because our cholesterol tests are off the charts. This is when we start leaning into the territory of routines for their own sake or comfort zones, we could call them that. A LinkedIn article that was entitled The Thinking Trap points out that, quote, automaticity means thinking about things the same way, which then becomes our default, end quote. By extension, it's pretty easy to see how this bottlenecks innovation. Maybe this is when the phrase, but this is the way we've always done it, shows up. That's the perfect poster child for the negative aspects of automaticity. By far, though, one of the most detrimental effects of going through the motions happens in relationship. You'd think that would be super obvious, wouldn't you? But I have encountered this more times than I can count. I really should try and calculate how much money I've charged organizations over the years to come in and help untangle this very harmful dynamic. You know, how organizations are always so concerned about the bottom line. Well, maybe, just maybe, if I show them all my past invoices, the powers that be would sink more dollars upstream to actually empower leaders to sidestep traps like this before they get stuck in them. Okay, enough. I'm digressing, though. I think it's relevant in automatic partnerships. Nothing new is ever really learned about one another, which usually translates to not really listening to one another, and then it's just a slip and slide to not really respecting one another. Trust, of course, languishes by the sidelines, and partnership dies of yawn, yawn boredom. Overall, we risk living more by default than by design, and then when the waiter asks, How was your meal, we say fine, mindlessly, without realizing that just a moment ago I was complaining to my dinner companion about how bland my salad was. So this seems like a good place to pivot and start focusing on how we work with and manage automaticity, because there will be times when we want to intentionally pause or disconnect our autopilot, and times, believe it or not, when we may actually want to amp it up. It all just depends on what result we're going for. To start, let's say that at this point in the episode, you may be starting to realize that perhaps you are going through the motions a little more than you'd like in your relationships and work partnerships. Perhaps you're even coming to the conclusion that even though automaticity feels like the easiest thing in the moment, because who has time after all?
Speaker 1 22:55
When you look at the longer game you're playing, you kind of can't ignore some of the concerns that I talked about during the cons section of the episode, namely that your workplace partnerships are yawn, yawn, boring and uninspired, and maybe you're receptive to the notion that you can't actually do something to shake things up in a more positive direction. Well, if any of that is true, the next part is for you, and that wasn't the start of a little rhyming poem. Awareness is, of course, the first order of business in this process, because what we can't see we certainly can't change. So then, how does one pause automaticity when one discovers they are in the middle of it? The temptation here is to look for an effortless answer, you know, the ones that are easily digestible in this moment, leaving a nice flavor in your mouth, but the second you try to replicate them in the real world, they wither and die because they lack real life substance. I am not going to give you an oversimplified process here, you don't need another five steps for anything, which brings up an interesting insight that is going to cause me to become tangential for a moment. How many of us are really serious about putting effort into anything to do with enlightening ourselves these days? How many of us are just listening for entertainment value or the distraction from something we should be doing, but would rather not do. How many of us are actually listening to a podcast on automaticity while inhabiting automaticity? Alert the newspapers. I think I may have uncovered a story. Conspiracy theory uncovered. Think self-help is on the rise. Think again. According to one witness, quote, when people see you reading books, listening to podcasts, and attending seminars, they think, oh, look at this guy improving himself. They respect you for it, which feels nice, but I'm not actually working at any of it, which is nice too. I'd call. That a win-win, wouldn't you? Hmm, okay. Try something with me in this moment. Take a look around your life, your work, your home, all of it from this vantage point. Where are the places you are more likely to apply automaticity with very few exceptions, most people don't even think of themselves as applying anything, they're just doing something they've done countless times before without thinking about it, and for the most part, that's fine. What we're after here are the places where doing something automatically could be problematic. If you're sitting there racking your brains, consider what you might think of as routines. You're going to discover very quickly that a lot of your life falls into this category, and that in and of itself can be a bit depressing. After all, we're not robots, but don't panic just yet, because, as I've already mentioned, a certain amount of automaticity really does make life smoother, and there are a lot of repetitive tasks to being alive. I'm certainly not going to suggest you imbue all of these with conscious awareness, with the caveat that if you were at a Buddhist retreat center right now, this is precisely what I'd be asking you to do. But that's another story. Let's not bite off more than we can chew here. Sift quickly through those teeth brushing, driving to work, chopping wood and carrying water kind of tasks were after something different. Look more closely at the people you work with. Picture the faces of the people you interact with most on a daily basis, the types of interactions and conversations that are most quote unquote normal. Does automaticity live here? Do you see any going through the motions? If you answer no, I don't believe you. But again, don't panic, because at least now we know where you need to direct your efforts to pause automaticity, and I suspect we're in the vicinity. Okay, now for this practice, you need to narrow your focus down even further to one key partnership that you rely heavily on to be successful in your work or life, either or. Try to study the partnership objectively for a moment, not them, but the combination of both of you. What's going on here? What do others see? Is this one of those partnerships that falls in the category I referenced earlier, as in nothing new has ever really learned about one another?
Speaker 1 27:33
No one is really listening deeply to one another, and maybe it's worse, no one is really respecting one another. Okay, perhaps your example is nowhere near this automatic, but if it is, this is much less a partnership than just two people who are thrown together in much the same way a group of people does not make a team. But the good news is that no matter where you would rate your partnership, helping it to thrive again, doesn't actually take that much effort. It's just that the effort it does take may seem strange. I'm working with a couple of different workplace partnerships right now, and in both cases I see a mutual foundation of respect, and that in itself is a real treat, and both partnerships will benefit exponentially just by becoming more explicit about how they interact, which is very different from the content of their conversations, and that's where we're off to next. Pausing your automaticity in partnerships, like the ones I've just referenced, can be a powerful first step in fostering conditions for a more robust partnership, and by the way, while we're on the subject of partnership, I'm going to borrow Barry Ashri's definition of partnership, because I've been working with it for many years now, and I think it deftly sidesteps the common conflation that some leaders make about the importance of friendship and liking the other person. I'm not saying those aren't nice things to have, but does a successful partnership rest on that? Here's the definition of partnership: two or more people jointly committed to the success of whatever endeavor they're engaged in. You see, the critical focus is on joint commitment to the success of the endeavor, and you don't need to like one another to work that way. It's nice, but you don't have to. In this definition, both parties share a common vision. They're striving for the same outcome, and when that's the case, it's often easier to overlook some of the pesky frustrations that we may experience around different styles. In fact, it's quite possible we may come to appreciate those differences precisely because of how useful a well-rounded approach can be to succeeding at whatever endeavor we're focused on. So, here's the million-dollar question. How in the world do you pause your automaticity and partnership? Ready, simply wake up and be present. Start with a connection conversation first, one that allows you to relax and actually feel your toes. Remember those things on the end of your feet, talk about something that jazzes you, your values, successes, whatever it is. Find the present moment and try having a meeting from this place. Doing this will give you fresh eyes and new ideas. Go one step further, create an agreement with your partner to hold one another accountable to staying present and grounded, so they can help you notice if, when you start sliding into autopilot, and vice versa. And simultaneously, don't put a lot of pressure on yourself to stay present, because, of course, it's not always that easy to withstand those old patterned responses. Just pay attention to the quality of your discussions and meetings from this place. I think you're going to find that it becomes very difficult to do things like nod when you're not really listening or going along with their cockamamie idea just to be agreeable. That kind of automaticity will hang around for a while until you've built a new habit of presence with one another, but just for a moment, let's expand the topic of pausing automaticity to life beyond this one partnership, because you may discover that a certain type of work that you do will hugely benefit from greater presence and less autopilot. You may also interact with staff or other employees on a regular basis, and you may be met with a lot of automaticity from their end. This may be evident through the amount you're spending course correcting or babysitting. Automaticity from their end may indicate a serious lack of engagement, going along to get along instead of telling you how they really feel. A few simple strategies here will help you individually pause your own automaticity, but also help them to pause theirs. I'm talking about developing something I call alarm clocks, or speed bumps. These are metaphors for something that is designed to jar people off autopilot into a more wakeful state.
Speaker 1 32:18
For yourself personally, there are apps you can download onto your computer that will randomly turn your screen black, which you know maybe isn't the best thing, but it could also serve as a reminder to you that it's time to stand up and stretch and feel your toes, or whatever practice works for you. Even a posted sticky note on your monitor that asks, What are you doing right now? And why? You could put on a piece of beautiful music on your earbuds, you could go for a walk, read something funny, or look at a picture of your family. It's pretty hard to do any of these things from automaticity when it comes to leveraging alarm clocks for the folks you supervise, Kendra Cherry, in her article, What is automaticity, suggests mindfulness to bring awareness to the present moment. This could mean any number of activities, from asking people to report out on their highs and lows, or sharing something that inspired them that day, which usually connects them to their internal value system, she goes on to suggest introducing novelty and varying routines, and that shifting attention between tasks breaks up the repetition and helps draw workers out of autopilot mode. For employees that need to be very attentive to their environment, Cherry references the double check systems that airline pilots use. This approach engages multiple biological systems, such as reading an item out loud, that's the auditory, visually checking each item sight, and then physically touching each control or sensor, and that's touch. This might sound odd until you couch it in a context that is more relevant to your environment or industry, for employees who are responsible for workplace safety. For instance, this double check system could be adapted for relevant safety equipment. The point here is to minimize risk by helping people disconnect from their autopilot. One last technique I will share. For disconnecting your autopilot comes from the five second rule, a book published in 2017 Author Mel Robbins argues that the moment you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must push yourself to move within five seconds, or your brain will kill it. In other words, if an idea occurs to you through the fog of automaticity or autopilot, act on it within five seconds, or your brain will simply yank you back into autopilot, and the opportunity gone for good. I'd like to report that I've tried this technique multiple times and in multiple situations, and by Jove, I think she's really onto something. If you ever have a. Hard time getting out of bed in the morning. Just test drive this once and let me know how it works. All of what I have just covered has been about pausing autopilot or dampening it down, but are there any situations where you may want to amplify it? This is where it gets interesting, and this was referenced at the beginning of the episode when I discuss the potential connection between automaticity and the peak performance of a state of flow. Flow, by the way, is defined in the literature as a state of optimal performance denoted by smooth and accurate performance with an acute absorption in the task to the point that time disassociates and disassociative tendencies, end quote. One study demonstrated that people were 500% 500% more productive in flow state, which makes flow a very interesting topic for people interested in high performance. A researcher with a name that I'm not even going to try to pronounce, I'll put it in the show notes. Developed a flow state model where the x axis is equal to the skill level and the y axis is equal to the challenge level. If someone has more skill than challenge, they are facing relaxation, boredom, and eventually even apathy. But when the challenge exceeds the skill level anxiety and worry occur, however, when there's a high level of challenge and a high level of skill, the flow state is more likely to occur, but, like, of course, this is only part of the story.
Speaker 1 36:33
So, what does automaticity have to do with any of this in the US Army Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences paper entitled An Overview of Automaticity and Implications for Training the Thinking Process, authors Hold and Rainey quote a research study by Masters, who writes, quote, We found that experts who fail under pressure would often report that they are too aware of what they are doing, end quote. To my ears, this sure sounds like self-consciousness. Is this a case of too much thinking about how to swing the club instead of just swinging the club? Makes me think of a funny little story called The Centipedes Dilemma. In it, a toad manages to immobilize a centipede simply by asking it how it walks. The centipede, who is normally unconscious in its locomotion, becomes thoroughly interrupted by trying to consciously reflect on the fact, and through doing so becomes unable to move. Can you relate? The researchers go on to describe how high awareness can actually get in the way. Quote, many rules that the performer has accumulated in becoming an expert will be reinvested in the skill, disrupting its automaticity. End quote. The rules that the research is referring to are all the bits and pieces of information that are absorbed during time spent in the initial learning curve of whatever it is we're trying to learn, of course, all of those bits and pieces are necessary as we're developing the skill, but assuming we've now learned that skill to some level of mastery, and this, of course, is key, being conscious of said rules, while engaging in the skill becomes problematic. The researchers noted this exact thing in reverse: quote, efficient movement patterns develop despite the fact that learners were unable to comprehend any conscious knowledge or rules about what they were doing, end quote. Essentially, you are able to swing the club, and this assumes we're referring to somewhat of a masterful swing, because, of course, anyone can swing a club, even when you're not consciously thinking about what you're doing. They go on, quote, performance of implicit learning groups improved under stress, end quote. This means that even though there was a stress element in play, and this could be from, say, fans watching the match, or television cameras, people who were engaged in the skill that was referred to as the efficient movement patterns, that would be like the golf swing, without conscious knowledge about the rules as they were carrying it out, actually got better in spite of the stress, the positive impact of automaticity on their performance in this case seems to have acted like a cocoon, kind of filtering out all the external noises. It reminds me of that older movie entitled The Legend of Bagger Vance. This was Will Smith before hitting people became his thing. I'm just kidding. Sorry, sorry. So, stepping away from golf for a second, do you like to read? If so, then you probably already intuitively sense how automaticity reduces attentional demands to allow you to enjoy the experience of the story in a kind of flow state. I suppose this also depends on the book. We've probably all had that experience of being utterly lost in the pages of a novel, racing toward the finish while simultaneously resisting the end. That kind of experience relies on expert level performance that has no conscious knowledge of all the bits and pieces of your original reading learning curve. You're not thinking about the letters of the alphabet, you're not sounding words out in your head, you're not pausing to look up the meaning of words you don't understand. Okay, fine. In some cases, you might be, depending on what you're reading, but the whole flow state of reading wouldn't be possible without automaticity, because it's automaticity that allows you to experience what you're reading and not get stuck in the mechanics of how you're reading. Okay, I noticed that what started out as a shorter bonus episode has quickly morphed into something much larger. Thank God for podcasts. So, let's do a quick recap here. In this episode I've taken on automaticity, hopefully not from automaticity, I don't think so. I feel pretty present. We've talked about what it is, how it works consciously and unconsciously. We've explored some of the costs and the benefits.
Speaker 1 41:15
The really big costs of automaticity are, of course, felt in relationship, and conversely, this is where you can make the biggest difference, just by pausing or disconnecting your autopilot, and I shared some techniques for how to do that. If we don't wake up to how much our life is spent in automaticity, and remember, by some estimates, that was between 43 and 47% Holy cow, we risk living by default, not design, and if that's working for you, hey, knock yourself out. But for most of us, this is actually a far cry from the level of aliveness and connection that we actually crave. So do something about it, will ya? Lastly, and kind of as a bonus, I dip my big toe into the pool of the proverbial flow state, searching for answers about how amplified automaticity in certain situations can have a startlingly positive effect on performance. Admittedly, there is much more here to unpack, and perhaps I'll do a full episode on this down the road. Who knows? In any case, I want to leave you with a few quotes about automaticity, the first is directed at the process of learning itself. Quote, the importance of repetition until automaticity cannot be overstated. Repetition is the key to everything. End quote. That's John Wooden. Now it's really important that you clarify the context of this quote before using it all over the place. Can you imagine handing that to a newly married couple? It's like not good. Okay, how about this one quote: The automaticity of everything is the beauty of life, end quote. Sri Ama Bhagavan. When you think of these words, imagine a bird perched on a tree branch in the forest, automaticity in nature, and here's a nice one to end on. Quote, "It's only when you wake up that you notice you were sleeping. End quote. I hope that this episode has acted as something of a wake-up for you, but like not in a shrill alarm clock kind of way, but more like you fell asleep in a hammock on a summer afternoon, and a little ripple of breeze stirs a stray hair on your face, and you open your eyes and look around at all the beauty that surrounds you. Until next time, so you've been listening to the squeeze. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to continue tuning in, don't forget to click subscribe. And, as always, we want to hear your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, and challenges. If there's anything you don't agree with, thanks for joining us. And see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 43:57
Bye.