The following is a Forward Steps guest post written by Sahan Kodagi. The original title of his article was, “Harness your full potential with the power of flow”.
A few years ago, I was at a low point in my life.
I felt lost and was unable to focus.
I was putting a lot of pressure on myself and ended up procrastinating a lot.
Playing chess was one of the ways I procrastinated.
While I played chess, I felt focused, calm, and in control. Even though it required a lot of concentration and had plenty of pressure, I never felt an aversion to it.
I didn’t shy away from it.
I looked forward to the hours of intense concentration.
When I realized this, I decided I wanted to figure out a way to replicate this feeling throughout my life.
That’s when by a lucky twist of fate, I discovered the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
What is a flow state?
Flow is the ultimate zone of productivity and creativity. It’s a state where you feel entirely focused and in control.
You forget yourself, your worries and the world around you.
When in a state of flow, challenges that were a struggle to overcome become effortless.
Flow is most commonly experienced while playing a competitive sport, engrossed in writing an essay or solving a complex problem.
It’s that moment when everything clicks.
When in a state of flow, challenges that were a struggle to overcome become effortless. Share on XFlow provides a sense of discovery, pushes a person to higher states of performance and leads them to higher consciousness states.
When in a state of flow, challenges that were a struggle to overcome become effortless.
Curiosity and play
When trying to achieve a flow state, it’s crucial to have a beginner’s mind. Or, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it, an autotelic personality.
An autotelic personality has traits such as curiosity, persistence, low self-centeredness and high performing activities.
Autotelic means having a self-contained activity, which is done not with the expectation of some future benefit but to experience it as the primary goal.
A sense of detached fascination with an idea mixed with exploring that idea with no expectations is the secret to getting into a flow state.
These traits have been found to increase neuroplasticity and learning outcomes.
One researcher (Abuhamdeh, 2000) found that people with an autotelic personality have a greater preference for “high-action-opportunity, high-skills situations that stimulate them and encourage growth”.
It is in such high-challenge, high-skills situations that people are most likely to enter the flow state.
When trying to achieve a flow state, it's crucial to have a beginner's mind. Share on XHow stress can help with neuroplasticity
Always push yourself and understand that the feelings of anxiety are just a feedback mechanism.
Contrary to popular belief, some stress is needed when trying to master a new activity.
The best way to learn a new skill is to combine short periods of high pressure with deep relaxation right after. Push past your discomfort.
The stress period helps produce the hormone Noradrenaline, which enables neuroplasticity and allows for more in-depth learning.
When you feel discomfort, it is vital not to give up. Feeling like an idiot is part of the learning. The first step to take when you are learning a new skill is approaching it without an ego.
Getting frustrated is part of learning any new skill.
You will go through many cycles of accelerated growth and then hit a wall. One meta-skill that you should learn is the ability to break through this.
The first step to take when you are learning a new skill is approaching it without an ego. Share on XHow to achieve a flow state
To achieve flow, Csikszentmihályi lays out the following three conditions:
– Goals are clear
– Feedback is immediate
– A balance exists between opportunity and capacity
The task should be challenging enough to require your full concentration but easy enough to lose yourself while doing it.
You have to find a balance between boredom and frustration.
“Control over consciousness is not simply a cognitive skill. At least as much as intelligence, it requires the commitment of emotions and will. It is not enough to know how to do it; one must do it, consistently, in the same way as athletes or musicians who must keep practicing what they know in theory.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It may take some trial and error to find tasks of the appropriate level of difficulty, but when you manage to hit it, the rewards are immeasurable.
Contributed by guest author
Sahan Kodagi is the founder of Sage School.
A platform that helps you develop mental models, skill stacks and systems that will allow you to maximize your productivity, improve your communication and become the best version of yourself.
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