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Neuroscience Nuggets #7: How To Find Your Flow
I’m immersed in what I’m doing. All of my senses are on high-alert. Ideas are bubbling, progress is being made, there's a giddy satisfaction rippling through my body and time is flying by so fast I have to remind myself to come up for air.
It happens when I’m cooking, writing, playing tennis, and hanging out with friends.
But most often it happens when I’m coaching.
This inimitable “in the zone” state is called "flow."
Everyone since the dawn of time has experienced it at some point or another, but it wasn’t officially discovered until Hungarian Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who sadly passed away last week) coined the term in 1975.
Csikszentmihalyi set out to discover how and why people feel enjoyment in their everyday lives. From artists and chess players to leaders and farmers, for years he studied their daily habits and activities, trying to find that *exact* moment when people feel totally in synch with whatever they’re doing without needing any external motivation to do so.
His research landed on "flow," the moment in time when interest and skill are in perfect harmony, when you feel intrinsic joy and purpose without extreme effort.
Csikszentmihalyi defines "flow" as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
What's amazing about "flow" (and which leads us to our neuroscience nugget today) is what happens in the brain when you’re in it. Or better yet, what doesn’t happening in the brain.
I’m immersed in what I’m doing. All of my senses are on high-alert. Ideas are bubbling, progress is being made, there's a giddy satisfaction rippling through my body and time is flying by so fast I have to remind myself to come up for air.
It happens when I’m cooking, writing, playing tennis, and hanging out with friends.
But most often it happens when I’m coaching.
This inimitable “in the zone” state is called "flow."
Everyone since the dawn of time has experienced it at some point or another, but it wasn’t officially discovered until Hungarian Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who sadly passed away last week) coined the term in 1975.
Csikszentmihalyi set out to discover how and why people feel enjoyment in their everyday lives. From artists and chess players to leaders and farmers, for years he studied their daily habits and activities, trying to find that *exact* moment when people feel totally in synch with whatever they’re doing without needing any external motivation to do so.
His research landed on "flow," the moment in time when interest and skill are in perfect harmony, when you feel intrinsic joy and purpose without extreme effort.
Csikszentmihalyi defines "flow" as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
What's amazing about "flow" (and which leads us to our neuroscience nugget today) is what happens in the brain when you’re in it. Or better yet, what doesn’t happening in the brain.
Since "flow" occurs in the sweet spot between arousal (aka challenge) and control (aka skill), your brain is not experiencing the anxiety of trying to accomplish something beyond its reach, nor is it wandering aimlessly looking for some sort of internal or external distraction.
Your brain’s attention is so focused on what it's doing that anything unrelated to the task at hand, including self-consciousness, self-doubt, and negative self-speak, is literally squeezed out of the equation.
When in "flow," “existence is temporarily suspended,” says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his must-watch Ted Talk, so much so that your doubts, hunger, fatigue, and even your kids can’t seem to shake you out of what you’re doing.
This is what I love most about "flow":
Being in "flow" is deeply personal, non-hierarchical and non-discriminatory. You can feel like Beyoncé at Coachella even when you’re setting a table for your dinner guests, creating spreadsheets for your clients or doing a workshop on Zoom.
"Flow" is neither about forcing yourself out of our comfort zone to prove your self-worth, nor about avoiding risks at all costs. It's about the sweet spot in-between stretch and security.
You can find meaning—and "flow"—in all types of professions. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon or the head of NGO to feel a joyful purpose in life.
So what are the take-aways here?
We need both arousal (aka challenge) and control (aka skill) to make "flow" happen. It’s that very special space where our challenges and our skills dance together like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey .
If you're experiencing too much overwhelm at a given task, think about what practical skills you could hone to rise to the occasion (like those steamy nights of "practice" between Swayze and Grey).
And if your tasks are feeling pretty stale around the edges, find a way to put your skills to a stretchy challenge, like Swayze teaching a rhythmless teenager how to dance like a pro.
The hidden cost of under-valuing creativity
When I was a trend reporter the rule was "one is chance, two is coincidence and three is a trend."
And right now I have three different clients connected in a strikingly, trend-specific way.
Their common connection? As kids, they were discouraged from nurturing their creative sensibilities because their families were scared about what would happen if they decided to pursue those paths professionally.
It sounds counter-intuitive, right? You've got a kid who devours four books a week, a kid who's exceptionally gifted at music, a kid who has a passion for collecting and transforming objects, but instead of feeling excited as a parent, you feel dread.
You see when you come from a family where science, math, law, etc are the gold standards, where they're held high above anything else, it's hard as a parent to get behind the idea of developing your child's creative side.
The discouragements, for the most part, come from fear. "What if she become an artist? How will she support herself? Ahh, scary, no!"
But let's play a game of "Fast Forward A Few Decades," shall we?
Your kid has the degrees, the fancy title, the safe job, but then she starts to feel completely and totally out of whack and wonder "How did I get here?" "Who was calling the shots?" "Why did I decide to climb this ladder?"
What's the most obvious risk of being discouraged from nurturing your creative sensibilities most of your life?
The number one I've seen is the deep sadness in silencing that special spark inside of you that's the source of so much joy. That deep rift creates a hole in the heart that looks to be filled elsewhere.
Which can lead to some other consequences I've discovered when people search for value in ways unrelated to what flows naturally:
When I was a trend reporter the rule was "one is chance, two is coincidence and three is a trend."
And right now I have three different clients connected in a strikingly, trend-specific way.
Their common connection? As kids, they were discouraged from nurturing their creative sensibilities because their families were scared about what would happen if they decided to pursue those paths professionally.
It sounds counter-intuitive, right? You've got a kid who devours four books a week, a kid who's exceptionally gifted at music, a kid who has a passion for collecting and transforming objects, but instead of feeling excited as a parent, you feel dread.
You see when you come from a family where science, math, law, etc are the gold standards, where they're held high above anything else, it's hard as a parent to get behind the idea of developing your child's creative side.
The discouragements, for the most part, come from fear. "What if she become an artist? How will she support herself? Ahh, scary, no!"
But let's play a game of "Fast Forward A Few Decades," shall we?
Your kid has the degrees, the fancy title, the safe job, but then she starts to feel completely and totally out of whack and wonder "How did I get here?" "Who was calling the shots?" "Why did I decide to climb this ladder?"
What's the most obvious risk of being discouraged from nurturing your creative sensibilities most of your life?
The number one I've seen is the deep sadness in silencing that special spark inside of you that's the source of so much joy. That deep rift creates a hole in the heart that looks to be filled elsewhere.
Which can lead to some other consequences I've discovered when people search for value in ways unrelated to what flows naturally:
They lose their confidence in themselves and their ability to trust their intuition because they believe that their natural talents are worthless (literally worth-less) than other pursuits that were (and continue to be) much harder for them to excel at.
They latch on to a system of reward and recognition that's outside of themselves, detached from their inner compass and emotional foundation. That system's usually about extreme effort and external signs of value that can easily lead to over-exertion, emotional exhaustion and a feeling of complete misalignment.
They forget that they already know what they like, what they're good at, what comes naturally to them, and that there are untapped possibilities for them within those worlds.
So what happens next? How do we unravel that onion and find our way back to the creative joy?
The number one stop is identifying the thoughts in your head that are telling you you're not doing it right. That you're not disciplined enough. Responsible enough. Hard-working enough. That's a telltale sign there's something stinky going on under the surface that's creating the misalignment.
Because when you peel the onion back you're bound to find that when it comes to doing the things that flow naturally, that give you pleasure, that you're innately good at, the responsibility, discipline, and effort aren't an issue.
Do you ever feel irresponsible, undisciplined, not-good-enough?
What are you doing, or not-doing, when you say that about yourself?
When did those thoughts first appear in your mind?
And on the flip-side, what do you do naturally and without struggle without any voices telling you you're not doing it right?
Book a call and we can discuss!
Much love to you today.
Zeva
Like bad ass flowing water
I reluctantly turned down a perfect margarita on the rocks at the lively Mexican restaurant we were dining at. I had to drive the whole kit and caboodle back to my mom's house in upstate NY and the roads are tricky there at night.
It was a good thing I didn't indulge.
Fifteen minutes into our drive we had to shut off the radio, get the kids to stop fighting and seriously focus on the road because we were suddenly caught in a thunderstorm so intense it felt like an end-of-the-world action film.
I’ve never seen that much water fall that hard and that quickly. And for miles and miles and miles. I kept my calm for the kids but I was freaking the hell out.
It reminded me how bad ass water can be. It’s super discreet until it’s totally not. And it never seems to try that hard.
I reluctantly turned down a perfect margarita on the rocks at the lively Mexican restaurant we were dining at. I had to drive the whole kit and caboodle back to my mom's house in upstate NY and the roads are tricky there at night.
It was a good thing I didn't indulge.
Fifteen minutes into our drive we had to shut off the radio, get the kids to stop fighting and seriously focus on the road because we were suddenly caught in a thunderstorm so intense it felt like an end-of-the-world action film.
I’ve never seen that much water fall that hard and that quickly. And for miles and miles and miles. I kept my calm for the kids but I was freaking the hell out.
It reminded me how bad ass water can be. It’s super discreet until it’s totally not. And it never seems to try that hard.
It doesn't second guess itself and wonder:
"How am I going to get around this thing?”
“Is this too much?”
“Am I allowed to be here?“
"Should I be doing it this way?"
Nope. It just flows. Over, through, around or in-between with a force that’s relentless, rhythmic, mesmerizing.
I’m fascinated by the concept of “flow.” Being in it. Watching it. Seeing what comes out of it.
My favorite part of my visualization workshop is when the group arranges their cut-out imagery on their vision boards with my R&B play list going on in the background.
Everyone's so focused and absorbed by what they’re doing there’s this humming flow to their movements. With little time to question their moves, they just have to go with what feels right.
Like bad ass flowing water.
When we behave like water we learn a lot about what we naturally migrate towards.
What we do when we are at our intuitive best. When everything feels totally in sync and easy and fluid.
For me that happens on a few specific occasions.
- When I cook.
- When I converse.
- When I walk.
- When I coach.
- When I write.
We so often over-complicate things. Try to force ourselves to be or become someone that we’re not. But what if there was less friction and more flow to our goals and our desires?
Try that idea on for size if you want with these questions:
- In what three situations do you intuitively know what to do?
- What's going on in those moments?
- How does it feel to be there?
- How often do you allow yourself to go there?
- What would happen if you strengthened that flow in you?
- Where would that get you?
PS. Speaking of "flow," there’s a three-hour Life Flow exercise that I love that clarifies desires based on natural tendencies, strengths and passions. At the end of the experience you’ll know exactly what steps you need to take right now to bring your goals to life.
I don’t usually offer Life Flow as a stand-alone coaching exercise, but it’s a great tool to get through the overwhelm of Fall in order to find your footing to move ahead with confidence during this tricky time of the year.