Flow State - Ten Bulls

Flow state is where mind, body and action merge into one. It is a peak state that’s characterised by intense focus, acute awareness, high-performance and great enjoyment.

You may have experienced flow at some point in your life – playing sports, running, meditating, or lost in artistic creation. You were totally immersed in the activity to the exclusion of everything else. You felt the energy, the focus, the rush. Every idea, every move and every stroke seemed effortless, and rewarding. Time melted away because the experience was all that mattered.

Athletes refer to it as being ‘in the zone’, musicians as being ‘in the groove’, flow state is accessible to all of us and can positively impact our lives.

What is flow state?

Flow is a concept that has existed for thousands of years, yet the breakthrough work of positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura brought it to the fore.

According to Csikszentmihalyi: “Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel and perform our best.” Their research crossed sports, professions and borders to discover what makes an experience truly satisfying.

Csikszentmihalyi adds, “There’s this focus that, once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity: you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other; you get immediate feedback.”

The six factors that encompass flow state are:

Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
Merging of action and awareness
A loss of reflective self-consciousness
A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
A distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience

Engaged, happy and self-actualised people spend much time in the flow state. They follow the muse, practice their craft and deepen their connection to it. They’re not bored, anxious or distracted, because they’ve merged with the activity. Time dissolves and the hours pass.

The benefits of flow state

Flow state has a number of benefits that in essence, make the task better, and make us better at the task. It improves our focus, concentration and performance, while increasing our level of enjoyment.

The main benefits of flow include:

Deep focus. You zone in on what you’re doing to the exclusion of all else. This creates a deep connection to the activity and the present moment.

Greater skill and precision. Your whole being is committed to the activity and that leads to greater execution of techniques. You effectively unlock your skills.

Confidence. Every thought and every action follows effortlessly from the last. The immediate feedback, and your responsiveness help to boost confidence.

Mushin (No-mind). Your brain is not fixed or distracted with any thought or emotion in particular. It is free, it is supple and it is responsive.

Time alters. The experience of time alters. During sport, the game can appear to slow down. During artistic creation, time seems to fly by.

Elation. You feel the rush. You feel the high. This moment is all that exists.

Enjoyment of life. People who spend time in flow, doing things they love, typically have a better life experience. According to Steven Kotler, author of The Rise of Superman: “Flow is more than an optimal state of consciousness – one where we feel our best and perform our best – it also appears to be the only practical answer to the question: what is the meaning of life? Flow is what makes life worth living.”

How to enter a flow state

Many activities are conducive to flow: sports, dancing, music, creative pursuits, sex, socialising, coaching and, if it’s something you care about, work. In fact, most daily activities can lead to flow, as long as the task is intrinsically motivated and sufficiently complex.

A few conditions need to be met in order to achieve flow state:

Motivation. You need to care about the task.
Challenge. The task should be challenging, but not impossible.
Skill. Ideally, the task is something that you’re good at.
Action focussed. You are focussed on the action, and not on the outcome. The journey, and not the destination. You are doing it for the love of doing it.

We can increase the frequency of flow by practicing the right activities with the right mindset. Here’s how to further encourage flow state:

Do something you love. The easiest way to enter flow is by doing something you enjoy, care about, and are motivated to get better at. Whatever that is, it should light a fire in your belly.

Create a ritual. Treat your ‘art’ with reverence. It requires your energy, time, and total dedication. Prepare for each practice with a series of actions that you repeat every time – a few deep breaths, a word or phrase and a sip of your favourite drink. That helps you move through the gears and prime the body and mind.

Eliminate the barriers. Injury, illness, noise, people and ‘too many mind’ can all interfere with flow state. Create an environment that allows total focus. Single task instead of multi-task. That means turning devices off, working alone or with your core team, and minimising common distractions.

Increase the risk. According to Steven Kotler: “Risk heightens flow and flow follows focus. This means that the fight-or-flight response primes the body chemically and psychologically – for the flow state. Athletes report moving through one to get to the other.” If there’s a challenge or an element of risk, the experience of flow may be heightened further.

Let it happen. Flow state cannot be forced. It just happens, under the right conditions, and it’s always a pleasant surprise. Once you’re there, just go with it.

Flow is something that we can all tap into and benefit from. There’s a strong association between flow state and the state of meditation, so the more we practice them, the deeper the experience becomes.