Default vs Intentional
Default.
Habitual.
Less-than-fully-Conscious.
Routine.
Comfortable.
The Usual.
So much of what we do is out of habit. It’s routine. It’s just the way we do it.
There’s good reason for how this happens and why.
We’re built to create and use routines and habits.
It’s efficient. It leaves room to focus on threats and survival.
It’s primitive.
BUT.
We no longer live in a world of scarce food and water. Saber-tooth tigers no longer threaten our daily existence.
Yet, we still have a primitive neuro-biology but with a modern addition: the prefrontal cortex.
I’m not going to go into our brain structure and that it has primitive bits and a modern part (I’ve written about that plenty, and will so again).
What I am going to wrote about is the thought I just had. It’s later morning and I just asked myself:
“How am I going to use this afternoon? What am I going to accomplish?”
Just that pause unlocks so much. No more am I at the mercy of my habits and routines – my default life. (I’m choosing to engage the modern part of my brain: the prefrontal cortex.)
I can choose – consciously – to create my afternoon.
To accomplish things that matter to me.
And it’s all because I shifted from default to intention, with one question.