Feeling The Flow – Goal Setting 3
Ever been in Flow? Ever had that glorious experience of being in that ego-unaware state of being, pure being, in which you feel unfettered and free, at one with your self and the moment? It’s Goal Nirvana. A natural highly-motivated and performing state. For me, there are two experiences that stand out.
One was at my father’s funeral. In my 20s, the best tribute I could pay to my Dad was to sing at his funeral. He was a singer, as was his Mum. His pride in my voice was a glue that bonded us in what was, at times, an emotionally unexpressed relationship. But I didn’t know if I’d be able to get a note out. If grief would get in the way. As I walked up to the microphone at the other side of the church, away from the rest of our family, I remember the feeling of almost shedding layers of self-consciousness like garments, with intent. This wasn’t about me. It was about him. And it was about love. A daughter’s for her Dad. The meaning of the moment helped me to transcend inhibitions and allow my body and heart do the expressing in the language that united us. The technical aspects of singing happened – in the most ego-unaware automatic action of breath control and language and projection. It was as if, for those three minutes, that song was the vessel for us both. And nothing was more important. Pure communion.
The other, was as a trainee coach in a classroom exercise, ostensibly about work stress, when my 8-months-pregnant practice-coachee’s workplace stress devolved into confessions of a crumbling marriage and despair. My intake of breath at the sudden turn in conversation, was overtaken by instinctively going up a gear, and entering into a stream of listening and holding space in which my self-doubt had no place. Again, it wasn’t about me. It was about her. It was the turning point that cemented my resolve to change career, and become a psychotherapist.
The literature echoes my subjective experiences in that both, though very different, involved a state of sharp attention and focus, and a lack of ego consciousness.
Mihaly Csikszentmihályi, Godfather of Positive Psychology and originator of the concept of Flow, describes it as:
‘…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.’
Why is it important? Because who doesn’t want to experience a state of heightened productivity and being and feeling, well, bloody marvellous. Not a clinical description that! But wouldn’t it be just lovely if it didn’t take death or divorce to reach this place ‘involving our whole being’, where we use ‘our skills to their utmost’?
So what gets us there? The qualities of the experience research demonstrates involve:
– Intense concentration
– A loss of self-regard or meta-cognition
– A complete state of mastery.
The state of mastery is interesting in that it also works best if the situation is a little challenging. If it’s too easy, we don’t reach the Flow state. We get bored. There is a key relationship between skill level and challenge and Flow. The ‘sweetspot’ most likely to induce it, is somewhere between boredom and fear where your skill levels and your level of arousal are well matched. When the challenge is too much you’re going to be under aroused, or over aroused (Kotler, 2014).
Steve Kotler (2014) captures this balance as tasks that are ‘hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap.’ And that a challenge or goal should be 4% greater than your skill level in order to trigger Flow, with the following being present
– Deep focus and attention on task
– Being in a reasonably high stakes environment
– Slight degree of risk – a challenge to be risen to
– Feedback on task performance
In neurobiological terms, there is a lot of equivocation in research findings. Some findings point to lower blood pressure and heart rate and demonstrable activation of facial muscles involved in smiling. Others point to higher heart rates! It depends on the task people are doing. The most we can currently say is that Flow states are associated with functions of the Pre-Frontal Cortex (our executive function) which is associated with functions of attention, emotion and reward processing. This correlates with Csikszentmihályi’s contention of high attention and positive emotion being prerequisites. (McKay, 2019)
Interesting in terms of my own experiences, how neither were essentially ‘positive’ mood states but rather fuelled by meaning, and my own values of serving others being a driver to reach that ego-less state? At any rate, all research points to the fact that engaging in Flow has a huge capacity to increase our happiness and wellbeing and indeed our performance in the workplace.
To increase the feeling of Flow in your life:
1) Find an activity that engages and enthrals you.
a) If difficult, when did you find Flow last? What triggered it?
b) If still elusive, what activities did you throw yourself into and really enjoy at 14 or 16 years of age? (nothing illegal, thank you
2) Stretch yourself beyond where you believe your skill level to be
3) Keep on stretching
4) Practice reaching ego-unawareness – via mindful meditation, high intensity sport, music, whatever rocks your boat.
It’s worth pursuing. Working with your intrinsic movitators and triggering this natural state of goal nirvana has got to be a good thing. You may even end up feeling similarly to Steve Kotler, for whom it is pretty much everything:
‘Flow is the very thing that makes us come alive. It is the mystery. It is the point.’
Steve Kotler, 2014
Happy Flow Finding and Doing.
SOURCES/ FURTHER READING
The Rise of Superman. Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. by Steven Kotler (2014). Quercus.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Csíkszentmihályi (2008), Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
The secret to happiness: Go with the flow. By Sarah McKay. ABC Active Memory.