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Flow State: What It Is and How to Achieve It
Factors that often accompany the flow state
- Having clear goals about what you want to achieve
- Concentration and focus
- Participating in an intrinsically rewarding activity
- Losing feelings of self-consciousness
- Losing track of time passing
- Being able to immediately judge your own progress; instant feedback on your performance
- Knowing that your skills align with the goals of the task
- Feeling control over the situation and the outcome
- Lack of awareness of physical needs
- Complete focus on the activity itself
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The Flow State
Is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best. It happens when we are completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.
Factors that often accompany the flow state
- Having clear goals about what you want to achieve
- Concentration and focus
- Participating in an intrinsically rewarding activity
- Losing feelings of self-consciousness
- Losing track of time passing
- Being able to immediately judge your own progress; instant feedback on your performance
- Knowing that your skills align with the goals of the task
- Feeling control over the situation and the outcome
- Lack of awareness of physical needs
- Complete focus on the activity itself
Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi
“Flow also happens when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable, so it acts as a magnet for learning new skills and increasing challenges. If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.”
Benefits of the Flow state
Those who experience the flow state report higher levels of productivity, creativity, and happiness for up to 3 days after it.
Pushing ourselves just outside our comfort zone, stretching to accomplish a set goal and working toward that goal with focus, determination, and little distraction expands our minds and teaches us creative and innovative-skills that increase the quality of our work and life.
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Requirements To Enter Flow
To enter flow, you need appropriated self-control, environmental conditions, skills, task and rewards. Besides that, you must know what you’re doing, be able to see whether or not you’re ...
Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi
"In the flow-like state, we exercise control over the contents of our consciousness rather than allowing ourselves to be passively determined by external forces."
Self control to trigger a state of Flow
To get into a state of flow more often, we need to be able to increase our level of control over our consciousness:
- Find standards to determine whether any action you’re going to take is desirable towards getting into a state of flow.
- Self-control and flow depend on immediate feedback; find ways to constantly monitor your performance and adjust as you continue.
- Be wary of your mental energy. Define your work schedule to account for the variations in mental strength throughout the day.
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Flow is the state of mind
... where we are so immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity that we lose sense of space and time.
It is thought to be t...
Why it’s hard to achieve flow in your workplace
- The processes, policies, and busy work gets in the way.
- Most jobs don’t have a clear goal.
- Feedback can be inadequate.
- The pace of work has increased, and it’s hard for people to spend time thinking deeply.
- Your skills aren’t well matched to the challenges you are allowed to pursue.
- There’s a lack of control over interruptions or when and how you work.
- The job doesn’t push you out of your comfort zone.
Take more risks
... to push your mind beyond its comfort zone. Flow happens when we get a bit out of our comfort zone. Too much, and you get anxious; Too little and you get bored.
You need to know your physical or emotional limitations and consciously push past them.
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To enter the flow state
- An activity must have a clear set of goals and progress.
- A task must have clear and immediate feedback.
- There must be a good bal...
Tasks that encourage flow
These are tasks that tend to have high consequences (e.g., rock climbing or public speaking), clear feedback, and take place in a varied environment.
Flow = focusing on the present moment
When you are experiencing flow, it seems like the task at hand is almost performing itself.
But there's still a sense of personal control over it, and working on it feels very rewarding.
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How to trigger the flow state
- Flow follows focus, and taking physical or social risks drives focus into the now.
- Change your routine and increase novelty, unpredictability, and complexity
- F...
Research Findings On Flow
- When a person is in a state of flow, all five potent neurochemicals massively amplify the immune system.
- While on flow, stress-causing hormones are flushed out of body, and the autoimmune and nervous systems go haywire.
- A Gallup poll found that most American workers are disengaged and spends less than 5% of their day in flow.
What Flow is
Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, when you feel and perform your best. It’s the moment of total absorption.
Time speeds up or slows down like a freeze-frame effect. Mental and physical ability go through the roof, and the brain takes in more information per second, processing it more deeply.
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The Flow State
Flow is characterized by complete concentration in the activity at hand, resulting in a loss in one’s sense of space and time. It’s a state of both high challenge and high skill—a place where we’re...
The Six Parts of A Flow State
- Intense concentration on the task at hand.
- A merging of action and awareness - “being and doing become one”.
- A loss of reflective self-consciousness.
- A sense of personal control over the situation.
- A distortion of the perception of time.
- Autotelic experience: the activity itself is intrinsically rewarding, rather than the expected outcome.
What Flow Is Not
- It’s not easy. Flow is not just a state where we love the work so much it just pours out. Flow is a state where hard work meets joy and meaning.
- It’s not for beginners. The act of learning how to do something won’t always allow us to get into the flow. Getting into the zone in a specific discipline is something that needs to be learned and practiced.
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Awe brings perspective
Each of us is the protagonist of our own life. Our goals feel like the most important thing in our world.
But every now and then, a moment of awe challenges our understanding of the world...
Defining Awe
Awe is an emotional response to being in the presence of something greater than yourself, and that exceeds current knowledge structures.
Awe is a positive emotion and has a broadening effect on our thoughts and actions.
Awe-inducing stimuli
Feelings of awe have historically been recorded when individuals encounter contact with a "higher" power.
In modern times, the main triggers of awe are philosophical ones such as literature, music, paintings, and nature. Examples include natural wonders or events such as childbirth.
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“I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involve..."
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Defining Flow
Being in a state of flow means being immersed in the activity you are doing that you forget abut the outside world.
And you are most likely to reach this state when your skills are well-matched with your goal’s challenge.
Achieving Flow
- Set specific goals, that are aligned to your purpose, passions and values.
- Focus all your attention to the task in front of you.
- Enjoy the moment, and do not worry about the result
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The subconscious writer
We sometimes have to get out of our own way.
Too much conscious thinking about anything will become a source of stress; it makes us anxious and over-cautious as the fear piles up.
Get into daily rituals
Use them to support your body, your emotions, and your intellect.
For this to happen, make sure you:
- sleep well
- eat nutritiously and intentionally
- exercise
- read and find intellectual stimulation
- connect with others
- do things that excite you and give life meaning
- live your values.
Get into journaling
It helps you in the process of developing the right mindset of a writer.
Journaling makes you reflect on your life, imagine future possibilities, and you get to play with words because this is also a writing exercise.
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What Deep Work Is
A process of performing “professional activities…in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve ...
Shallow work
The non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted, tend not to create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.
Recognizing our limited willpower
...is the first element of deep work.
That means you won’t have the mental discipline to stay concentrated on a single task unless you prepare your mind and environment to it.
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