Is Life Flying By? Here’s How to Slow It Down

Life is just a fleeting sequence of moments. One minute, you're holding your baby, and the next, they’re off to college.

Have you ever wished you could feel more present in your life?

Do you desperately want to:

• stop going through the motions.

• get out of your own head.

• stop rushing.

So you can actually enjoy your life.

What if I told you you could have all that without adding anything to your to-do list?

In this post, you are going to learn how to spot the quiet signs that you’ve been living on autopilot and what to do next to come back to yourself. You’ll walk away with language for what you’ve been feeling and a gentle way to begin returning to presence so time stops rushing past you.

Why Your Brain Puts You on Autopilot (and How It’s Trying to Help)

We live in a world that is pushing our capacity to be human. We are being asked to consume and produce too much, and it’s stripping us of our ability to be human.

We are rewarded for acting like robots. Not feeling, ‘doing what is expected no matter how you feel,’ has become more important than bringing our humanness to each moment.

Your brain is a beautiful thing, and it tries to help. It adapts.

It has this ability to create automatic processing and habits to conserve energy when life is “too much.”

When there are too many inputs, routines take the wheel.

Our brains go into default mode (or autopilot). A mode where you’re less engaged with the present moment when you're in it. Which is sometimes super helpful. For example, when your life is threatened, you react automatically.

Autopilot is a human response to overload, not a personal failure.

But what happens when we live more and more in this autopilot state?

The one where we’re disengaged with the current moment?

We end up living lives where we don’t exist in them.

We spend our lives feeling rushed and numb.

The other option, the one I want to encourage for you today, is a life filled with just a little more presence, which feels steady and awake.

If you want that, keep reading.

The Subtle Clues You’re Living on Autopilot Without Realizing It

First, let’s talk about the signs that you’re living on autopilot, so you know when it’s happening. Awareness is always the first step in change.

• Living for the break: “If we can just get to the weekend.”
  You live for the next break. You feel like you need an escape from daily life to survive. You count down the days until you can get to that next vacation. And those breaks give you just enough reprieve to keep you going.

• You’re constantly in “get-it-done” mode: “Even joy-work can turn into tasks.”
  Get-it-done mode: When the act of checking something off your list is more important than the experience of doing the act you enjoy. You love cooking, but now it’s just another task—something to cross off before bedtime instead of something to savor.

• End of day time warps: “What did I do all day?”
  You wake in the morning and hit the ground running, and land in bed that night exhausted, but can’t remember what you did all day. Or maybe you drove home from work and don’t remember the drive. Memories are thin.

• Absent-minded mistakes: “Did I just pour coffee in my cereal?”
  You write and send an email to a client, and realize you had the wrong client. You booked a flight for the wrong day. You’re not paying attention when you scroll, and you end up scrolling for hours a day.

Autopilot is not who you are; it’s what happens when life asks too much for too long.

What It Actually Feels Like to Come Back to Yourself

I love honest truths and deep topics. I’ve been writing in my journal since I was sixteen years old. It’s how I process the world. But I haven’t shared my writings with the public until now.

Lately, I’ve noticed that something I love to do, such as writing, has become a chore.

Writing for a business is very different: produce weekly (gotta have a regular cadence), structure (create a template, have a hook, stick to one main point), copy editing (ugh…that’s not my strength..thanks AI).

And just like that, the joy and creativity are zapped.

You have to get it done…crank it out. Make sure it’s of high quality and provides value, too. It’s all so draining and takes the fun out of the creative experience.

When I take the time to slow down and focus not on the task at hand, but the intention behind the task, it feels better. Maybe for you, it’s not writing — maybe it’s cooking, painting, or running. When the joy shifts into ‘just another task,’ you feel it.

Tiny Practices That Slow Time and Wake You Up

• Two minute senses scan. Sit. Notice 5 things you see, 4 you feel, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, 1 you taste. Result: Your attention lands in the present.

• Single-task. Focus your attention on one simple task. If it’s drinking coffee, fully experience that act. Hold the mug. Sip slowly. Feel the warmth and the weight.

• Transition ritual. Three breaths at the door. Stretch. Step outside for one minute. Result: Roles do not blur. Your nervous system resets.

You cannot lengthen the hours you have, but you can deepen them.

As Jenny Odell says in How to Do Nothing, “The first half of ‘doing nothing’ is about disengaging from the attention economy; the other half is about reengaging with something else... that ‘something else’ is nothing less than time and space…”

Don’t Let Life Pass Without the Real You in It

Over the past decade, I’ve had this deep sense of fear that I’ll go without having left a trace of the real me.

Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent years caring for people at the end of their lives, wrote about the most common regrets of the dying. The one that struck me most was this: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

When I first read those words, I felt them in my chest. I thought about the years I spent chasing the next promotion, the next checkmark, the next gold star — only to realize I was climbing ladders that I didn’t really care about.

Life is a string of moments. Stop letting them pass you by with no trace of the real you. Your life and your uniqueness is worth so much more than just surviving.

You deserve to savor your morning coffee, truly experience your child’s laugh, and notice the sunset. Let’s take back our lives. Let’s learn to live in them and not just get through them.

If your days fly by and you are not sure where they went, this is just the beginning. Grab this free ebook for 5 Gentle Ways to Break Free from Autopilot. You will practice putting more of yourself into your life.