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You Know This Feeling
You can find "FLOW STATE" in all people like, artist were in the process of creation, time seemed to fall away. It was a deep form of attention that you rarely see elsewhere.
One rock climber told that : ‘The mystique of rock-climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it could go on forever. The purpose of flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going.’
~ If you want to get there, what you need to know three core components.
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Step #01
The first thing you need to do is to choose a clearly defined goal. I want to paint this canvas; I want to run up this hill; I want to teach my child how to swim. You have to resolve to pursue it, and to set aside your other goals while you do. Flow can only come when you are monotasking – when you choose to set aside everything else and do one thing. Mihaly found that distraction and multitasking kill flow, and nobody will reach flow if they are trying to do two or more things at the same time. Flow requires all of your brainpower, deployed towards one mission.
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Step #02
Secondly, you have to be doing something that is meaningful to you. This is part of a basic truth about attention: we evolved to pay attention to things that are meaningful to us. Our brain designed to pay attention to the stuff that matters to you. In any situation, it will be easier to pay attention to things that are meaningful to you, and harder to pay attention to things that seem meaningless. When you are trying to make yourself do something that lacks meaning, your attention will often slip and slide off it.
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Step #03
Thirdly, it will help if you are doing something that is at the edge of your abilities, but not beyond them. If the goal is too easy, you’ll go into autopilot – but if it’s too hard, you’ll start to feel anxious and you won’t flow either. Picture a rock climber who has medium-ranking experience. If she clambers up any old brick wall. she’s not going to get into flow because it’s easy. If she’s suddenly told to climb the Mount Kilimanjaro, she won’t get into flow either because she’ll freak out. When she needs is a hill that is, ideally higher and harder than the one she did last time.
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Get Your Flow State
So: to find flow, you need to choose one single goal; make sure your goal is meaningful to you; and try to push yourself to the edge of your abilities. Once you have created these conditions, and you hit flow, you can recognise it because it’s a distinctive mental state. You feel you are purely present in the moment. You experience a loss of self-consciousness. In this state it’s like your ego has vanished
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