I woke up to familiar white walls, sunshine pouring in through the window. An empty feeling inside as I busied myself getting ready for work. The night before I had been googling my problems in the pitch black, eyes straining against the light of my phone, "how can you change yourself?" - looking for the magic answer but really I think I wanted to be told I was doing everything I could already. That I didn’t have to change anything. And yet…
I was doing everything I could because I had given my all to a situation that I needed to now move on from, a relationship I needed to end, a job that was sucking the life out of me, an old life I needed to let go of. And that’s the thing about change, no matter what you want to change – even the small changes require your daily habits to align with what you really want. You have to step out of what you don’t want – which takes energy, to step into what you do want.
In the tangle of life – navigating mundane daily routine whilst often simultaneously being hit by unexpected crisis after crisis, it is easy to find ourselves lost, barely keeping our head above water and we find ourselves swept away by the demands of daily life, losing touch with our true essence. Like a sleepwalker, we move mechanically, detached from our emotions, dreams, and desires - living on auto-pilot to get through both the boredom and the busy-ness. Auto-pilot provides a sense of security, but it also stifles our growth and prevents us from experiencing life to its fullest.
We go through the motions, navigating each day without truly being present. But deep within, there is a longing for something more - a yearning for a life filled with purpose and authenticity. I remember those white walls. I remember the sunshine, the TV series I was watching to quieten the little voice telling me I was wasting my time and never going to do the things I really wanted to because, well, I wasn’t doing them. I remember the deliberate numbing and avoidance.
I also remember the liberation. The total freedom and connection to myself that followed the decision to start living consciously. I remember the big moments – the flights booked, the job notice given, the rebuilding of identity so I could cultivate the life I really wanted. Number five might surprise you.
What are the steps to living consciously?
1. Embracing the Call of Awakening
In moments of quiet reflection, we begin to sense the limitations of auto-pilot living. A subtle voice whispers within, urging us to break free from the chains of familiarity and discover our authentic selves. This call is an invitation to awaken, to open our eyes and hearts, and to embrace the power of conscious choice as the key to transformation.
2. The Essence of Conscious Choice: Deliberately Engaging with Moments
Conscious choice is the deliberate act of engaging with each moment, recognizing the options before us, and making decisions aligned with our true values and aspirations. For example, if this is wanting to change your snacks to align to your goal of healthier living, instead of mindlessly eating the digestives with your tea, it is about asking yourself if that is what you really want? Does it align or is it a habit? How will you feel 15 minutes after you’ve eaten the digestives? Or perhaps the choice is about how you show up in your relationship – are you constantly critical of your partner and wanting to cultivate connection and intimacy? What does that look like for you and your partner and how can you do more of it throughout your day? Longer cuddles? More physical touch? Deeper listening? More vulnerable sharing? Making a conscious choice is a profound shift from daily drifting to actively steering the course of our lives. Through conscious choice, we reclaim our autonomy and become architects of our own destiny as we can truly evaluate what works for us and what doesn’t.
3. Use Different Tools: Tips to Cultivating Conscious Choice
If you want different things, you need to do different things. Here are a few of the things I rely on when shifting into conscious choice.
a) Mindfulness: I started this by simply slowing down. Cutting sugar out of your coffee means stopping your hands from performing their muscle memory. Frankly muscle memory is what gets me by during periods where I am overwhelmed so by slowing down and being present with the task at hand I can start to question what I am actually doing. My main trick for this is to rely on my sense: what am I feeling in my hands? Coffee cup – oh! How do I want my coffee, do I want tea if I’m not having sugar? Or perhaps, what can I see/smell/hear/touch? All of these questions will bring you to the present moment and from there you can tune into thee questions that come up. The other trick I use is actually noticing aches and pains and becoming present in that sensation. "I'm clenching my jaw so I need to exhale and stretch my tongue to relax". It is through engaging with these minute moments that you build the success of your overall day. By becoming fully present in the here and now, we can observe our thoughts, emotions, and actions with compassionate awareness. Mindfulness allows us to break free from automatic patterns, enabling us to make conscious choices that resonate with our inner truth and goals.
b) Self-Reflection: Taking time for self-reflection is crucial in cultivating conscious choice. By creating moments of stillness, we can inquire deeply within ourselves, exploring our values, passions, and dreams. Through self-reflection, we gain clarity and insight, empowering us to make choices in alignment with our authentic selves.
c) Awareness of Triggers: Identifying the triggers that pull us into auto-pilot mode is an essential step in cultivating conscious choice. These triggers can be certain environments, relationships, or emotional patterns. By being aware of them, we can consciously choose how to respond instead of reacting impulsively.
d) Setting Intentions: Intention setting is a powerful practice in cultivating conscious choice. By setting clear intentions for each day, each week, or even each moment, we provide ourselves with a compass to guide our decisions and actions. Intentions remind us of our values and aspirations, allowing us to align our choices accordingly.
e) Accountability and Repair: There will definitely be days where you stumble into old patterns – take a breath and remember that simply through realising what has happened, you are now at a place where you can consciously recommit and realign your intentions. Be gentle with yourself, celebrate progress, and embrace the journey of change with resilience and self-compassion.
When you “mess up”, when you skip through a whole morning, or a whole day, or you default to the behaviour you are trying to change – it’s ok. In fact, it is an inevitable and necessary part of change. They key is to acknowledge it, hold yourself accountable and repair. So if this is internal it might look like: “ahhh ok, I forgot to [set my intentions and I spent the morning in absolute auto-pilot and forgot everything]. I can see this happened because… and I can do x,y,z differently now. I can take this moment to reset and take a few deep loving breaths”.
And if it is external it might look like: “hey, I’ve just realised that I spent the whole morning on auto-pilot and I totally forgot to [do the thing I said I would]. I’m really sorry. I’ve realised why it happened – and you know, chance is hard so I do really appreciate your support and patience whilst I make these changes. I’m taking this moment to reset and to keep trying to do things differently. Are you ok?”
4. Embracing Change and Resilience
Conscious choice invites us to embrace change and cultivate resilience. As we awaken from auto-pilot, we discover the courage to step into the unknown, to embrace the uncertainties that come with growth. Through conscious choice, we develop the resilience needed to navigate and even dance with the twists and turns of life, knowing that we have the power to adapt and create the change we desire.
5. Remember, Change Is a Journey: Embrace Self-Compassion
Embracing conscious choice is not about being perfect or making the "right" choice every time. Change takes energy, and there will be days when you may feel depleted and unable to give your all. That's perfectly okay. The power of conscious choice lies in stepping away from auto-pilot and bringing awareness to your decisions. It's about creating new neural pathways in your mind, one choice at a time. So *shock horror* there may be days where you choose the easy option. The important thing is to actually make it a conscious choice as this is how we build the neural pathways that prevent us from living in auto-pilot; what you choose is actually less important in terms of neural pathways. So there is no space for that perfectionist, all or nothing mindset telling us we have failed. It isn’t about that here. You are human and messy and you've probably experienced a lot of different things that have lead you to do things the way you do them now, so breaking out of them will be messy and that is absolutely ok - your whole messy self is welcome when you embrace making and sustaining change with conscious choice.
In fact, consciously choosing to revert to an old behaviour and acknowledging the reason for this (for example, you feel tired or depleted, is actually really helpful in understanding yourself more deeply and embodying your new changes in an easier way in the long-term. Asking yourself honestly and vulnerably if you have space to create that change right now is far more powerful than forcing yourself to fit into a “new you”. Of course, if you find your choice is repeatedly and consistently to revert back to the status quo then some additional work may be needed to uncover what is holding you there. But it is actually OK to take time off from your goals and to loosen the leash a little. This is much more likely to sustain you in your changes and to lessen “relapses”. My whole coaching philosophy is about cultivating kindness into your change journey so you can arrive at your destination whole and refreshed instead of arriving depleted and in stress mode, as this will likely trigger you into cycles of temporary change and relapse until you give up because you believe you are not capable. You absolutely are capable of anything you desire, it is about finding and cultivating the self-compassion and kindness to get you there – not forcing it.
So folx, the path of conscious choice beckons you. It is a path of self-discovery, liberation, and infinite possibilities. It is where you will find your true strength and the clarity to make your dreams achievable through small daily decisions – which through self-compassion and kindness, is achievable - even with executive dysfunction issues – believe me!
I invite you to join my mailing list, where we will embark on this transformative journey together. Sign up today and receive insights, practical tools, and inspiration to help you cultivate conscious choice in your daily life. Together, let us awaken from auto-pilot and embrace the radiant potential within us. You, too, can be an active creator of your destiny.
The time for transformation is now.
