Snap Out of Autopilot and Reclaim Your Life

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Cathy’s days had blurred together. Wake up. Coffee. Work. Kids. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. Conversations felt surface-level. Weekends disappeared in a haze of scrolling, errands, and parenting. She wasn’t unhappy, exactly—just disconnected and carrying the mental load.

When Cathy arrived at my practice, she wasn’t fully clear on what brought her in. She only knew she felt numb despite a great job, a 15-year marriage, and two teenage children.

As I started to get to know Cathy, it became apparent that her husband, Jeffrey, was an alcoholic and had been for the past seven years. One day, she started crying and asked, “What happened? Where was I for all those years while Jeffrey basically fell apart from his drinking? I was there, but somehow, I just ignored how serious his drinking problem was.”

Cathy was stuck in autopilot mode, and like many people, she didn’t even realize it. She had been operating that way for so long that she forgot how to be present in her own life.

What Is Autopilot Mode?

The clinical term for autopilot mode is “cognitive disengagement.” Nearly all of us have fallen into it at some point in our lives: It’s what happens when we stop making conscious, intentional choices and instead operate on routines, habits, and external expectations.

In this state, we:

• Follow the same routines day after day without questioning them.
• Lose touch with what we actually enjoy because we’re too busy just “getting through the day.”
• Numb ourselves with distractions—social media, TV, busywork—rather than engaging with real experiences.

In couple’s therapy, Leonard said he felt disconnected from his wife, Hannah. He became frustrated when she would bury herself in her phone during family night at home. It made him feel rejected because his wife seemed uninterested in engaging with him and the kids.

Hannah certainly avoided engagement at home, often filling family or couple time with tasks and busy work. Leonard often wondered if Hannah even realized how checked out she was. Hannah’s answer was that she just had a lot to do and was simply being efficient.

Autopilot isn’t always bad. It allows us to complete familiar tasks without wasting mental energy (driving, brushing our teeth, responding to emails). The problem comes when autopilot becomes the default setting for our entire life—when we stop thinking about what we’re doing and, worse, why we’re doing it. We lose curiosity, connection, and the ability to be present.

Why We Get Stuck in Autopilot

1. Your Brain Loves Efficiency

The brain's default mode network (DMN) is responsible for habitual thinking and behavior. It helps us conserve energy, but too much reliance on it leads to disengagement.

Cathy had many obligations, and Jeffrey was falling apart. Because she could not rely on him, she structured her life so efficiently that she didn’t need to think anymore. She could predict every hour of her day before it even happened. She was going through the motions and had lost real engagement with others and her joy. It seemed to be in the service of getting through life, but she wasn’t facing the fact that her husband’s drinking was destroying the family.

2. It’s Comfortable

Autopilot is comfortable. Making real choices forces us to reflect on what we actually want—and that can be difficult. What if we don’t like the answer?

The last time Hannah asked herself deep questions about her life, she took a risk. She followed her dream and started a new business, but it didn’t work out. After that, she decided it was easier to go through the motions than to face uncertainty again.

3. Society Rewards Autopilot

We’re encouraged to be “productive” rather than present. Work hard, check off the boxes, and keep going. But at what cost?

Cathy’s routine was reinforced by external validation—a boss who praised her for always being reliable and highly productive and a family who admired her consistency. But at what point does reliability turn into stagnation?

Breaking Free: How to Get Out of Autopilot Mode

Cathy and Hannah both needed to interrupt their patterns—not with drastic life changes, but with small, intentional shifts.

1. Interrupt the Pattern

The first step is disrupting the routine. Put down the phone and look around. Eat something new for breakfast. Small, intentional shifts force your brain to re-engage. Being present and in the moment can do wonders.

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2. Ask Yourself: “What Do I Actually Want Right Now?”

Not what you should do. Not what’s expected of you. What do you want? Developing self-reflection can help pull you out of autopilot and into a more present way of living. Journaling is a nice way to start exploring what matters to you.

3. Do Something That Scares You (Even a Little)

Autopilot thrives on sameness. Breaking free requires novelty and risk. It doesn’t have to be extreme—just something that pushes you slightly outside your comfort zone. Join a book club, sign up for a sports competition, learn a new language—anything that breaks your routine.

Cathy’s turning point came when she started small. I asked her to simply slow down during the “in-between” moments of her day. If she was walking to a meeting, I suggested she look around with curiosity and make mental notes on the things she had missed during her years of sleepwalking through life, like a new painting on the wall or a tree showing the first buds of spring.

By slowing down, she was able to focus on Jeffrey, who eventually got sober. Jeffrey had also been in autopilot mode and recognized that he had been hiding from himself.

For Hannah, it felt weird—like she was breaking rules that didn’t actually exist. But soon, she started noticing more. Conversations felt richer. She started cooking for the family. Time slowed down. She became closer to her children and Leonard.

If you’ve been stuck on autopilot, embrace curiosity and ask yourself continually, “What is going on around here?” The more you do that, the faster autopilot will be in the rearview.