Realizing is half the solution. But it still needs a lot of work! It is never just "automatic" especially if it has not been worked at very hard in your past. It is a habit, working on math, and we did not get into it earlier. I did not pay much attention, it "bored" me and was hard work when I was lazy but I had to take a country-wide algebra test and scored in the 99th percentile for the whole country, many thousands of children over many years. My teacher and I just looked at one another but she quit struggling, just put me in the back with the other smart kids who were allowed to do whatever they wanted during class (pay attention, work on other subjects/homework, read, whatever), the assumption being she could not make me pay attention and work at it, but if I chose to I would do fine.