FLOW: Change your thought process
Introduction
FLOW… Though the word sounds new, the concept is pretty old.
Have you?? Ever thought, why and how an artist could complete a painting in a day or two without quenching for thirst or hunger or sleep for that matter?
How can a rapper give the best performance even on ad-hoc audience request?
How can a naïve actor who doesn’t know how to dance give brilliant performances and rock stage in very next day?
How can (we) engineers graduate just by doing a study in a single night to understand the whole year’s syllabus :)?
Writer writing a book overnight?
Developers completing urgent deliverables in few hours?
Bookworms finishing 1000 pages books in a single sitting?
Mountaineer conquering Everest against the harsh climate?
Extensive exercising, athlete activities, meditation, long hours studies are also movements of drifts. And the list goes on…
What’s common amongst these people? Surrendering to the act fully?
Looks tough, isn’t it? But this happens every day, every minute! We see people getting involved deeply in any act. Doing something so heart-fully, without feeling pressured or stressed or drained. Achieving the target in an impossible time. THIS is exactly what is called FLOW, ‘ being in the zone’, ‘being immersed’. You are so immersed in anything that you forget what happening in your surrounding. Anything done in the “FLOW” state is asserted to be a high-performance act.
What happens when in FLOW?
Why do you feel accomplished, once it is done? When a person voluntarily stretches oneself (could be physically or mentally) and does something by going beyond its capacity/capability, it is the act of FLOW. Why voluntarily? Because it comes ‘by choice’ and not ‘by chance’. To give more than 100%, first, one should give 100%. Doing things in flow takes us closer to happiness. Mr. Mihaly (Writer of famous book: Flow) has done something called as ‘experience sampling method’ with different people and observed the happiness pattern and then the concept of FLOW got evolved. Happiness is a state of joy, high senses of bliss, creativity, and total involvement in which problems seem to disappear or solutions seem to be easier and there is an exhilarating feeling of self-wholeness, control, and influence.
So if in general, you are going to get happiness by doing things in a different way of being in the flow, why not try?? How will you know if you are doing any act inflow? It isn’t just something that happens to us automatically, it’s something we have to engineer. Something we can get better and better at, no matter what we’re doing, who we’re with, or what life throws our way.
How? here is the answer..
If any act lets you forget the sense of time, something which disappears the sense of surrounding. You do the act by losing the sense yet being in control… BOOM!!!! You are into “the FLOW”.
How to get into the FLOW?
Any activity can be finished in 2 ways.. can be generic.. or can be a unique way of finishing it which you could enjoy.
Try this peculiar way of doing things. Making your mind and brain available for ONE activity that you enjoy seems effortless as you are focusing the ONLY thing you would want to, this makes you forget that you are going beyond your capabilities and stretching yourself to accomplish it. It’s not something that you can master in one night, it gets better with practicing. Changing the way of interpretation(way of looking) at anything makes a lot of difference. The peace, the reward, the enlightenment we get when we achieve something the way we want it, is real SUCCESS or real HAPPINESS. It teaches us to do something by going beyond our range of limits and flourish, no matter what comes your way.
Get Going!
Let’s consider the following graph which can help to understand defining the FLOW without getting into “boredom” or “anxiety” level:
Neither choose anything which is complex & needs high skills, it brings more anxiety nor you go for something too easy, it creates boredom. Ability & challenges may differ from person to person here, so it’s “WE” who are going to decide where do we stand now and what could be the target. As they say- “A little of it is boring and a lot of is too much”. Hence, finding the RIGHT balance between these 2 is the key here and you will get more intense into the flow channel and move towards the top right corner. The goal is to find what is that we love and keep getting into it. Getting into it and get going is, after-all the BRAIN activity, and since we all have it, a little bit of push to it and you will be there, in the sensation of WOW.
Let’s try to apply this technique for any new challenge you get, allow yourself to FLY, allow yourself to GROW more… I am ready, are you?
**This article is based on a book called “ FLOW” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi* (Hungarian-American psychologist). Mihaly, was one of them who believed psychology is not always a mental illness or bad state of mind. it could be to pursue happiness or a positive state as well.