The State of Flow

 

                                                The State of Flow

A question to you: How do you feel when you are doing something which you don’t love to do? How would you describe that state? That ebb and flow of frustration, discontent, anguish and perhaps even fear of not doing something significant is something that we all have encountered and witnessed several times. But that frustration turns into excitement when you are setting yourself up to do something that you thoroughly enjoy doing. Think of that state where every moment passes by without you being consciously aware of it and you being helpless to not let it be, only realizing it at the end of it all. That’s what is known as the ‘State of Flow’.

State of Flow is when you are whole heartedly connected with the task in hand considering even the disturbances of the outer world seemingly occurring just to distract you. But at that time, you are so much in togetherness with the work you are doing that all those disturbances seem to be of trivial importance to you. This state of flow is the reason for contentment and happiness of mortals who do what they are supposed to do, even iteratively. Happiness, like Success as they say, is not a pursuit but its presence is in the present. And to experience it, one must be able to find ‘flow’ in what they do. Some people even after working on certain skill sets for several years live a fulfilling life, however iterative that task may be. Why is that? Well, one of the reasons is that they enter into that state of flow whenever they set out on that task.

The Paradox of Work Life

·         Lack of a clear direction:

Most people are living a life filled with almost every luxury that a man could think or possibly imagine but are still not fulfilled and find no meaning in what they do. This is possibly due to the fact that they had no sense of purpose for their life. And this what Logo therapy deals with. It looks into the future giving you a sense of hope and destiny that ignites the deepest desire of your heart to do something meaningful and significant. To learn, unlearn and then to relearn in ways never tested before and persevering through daunting situations making it the  true essence of life. And it is in this continuous process of breaking up your bones and then standing up firm again that gives you that state of flow where despite the circumstances, you say to yourself, “It doesn’t matter anymore, bring it on!”

·         Engagement in Multi-tasking:

With the advent of technology and scientific advancement, it has become normal for the younger generation (specifically) to drain themselves up with many activities all at once. It’s quite subtle and the effects of multi-tasking are detrimental. Many studies have been conducted over the years revealing that people who multi-tasked were far less productive than those who focused on the task at hand. Multi-tasking may seem to be a time saver but instead, it sucks up even more time and energy than if you were to focus on a single task. So Multi-tasking is a big detour to reaching the state of flow.

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The State of Flow

 And as someone said, “Energy flows where attention goes”. So, you don’t want your energy to flow in different directions where it ends up being wasted. Make sure that you are focusing on that one BIG Thing and align your energies in that direction to be in a state of flow.

·         Focus on being a Jack:

The post-modern society has played a massive role in advancing the belief system that a man or woman needs to be good at many things. So they have developed this idea of being a Jack of all trades. They want you to be a jack of all (or many) trades but don’t tell you to master something specifically. The average person is too concerned about being good at many things that they don’t have the luxury to spend their time on thinking about something which they could master and become the best at it. Whenever you master some trade in life, you always feel this state of feel. Even the top notch athletes have agreed upon this at some point in their life where they were at the top of their game. You might have heard they say about their exceptional performance as being normal or natural for them. It’s because they have become so good at it that it feels like another game or regular performance for them.

There is a Ladakh Leh highway signboard which signifies the true essence of state of flow. It reads, “ What is a lifetime adventure for you is a daily routine for us”.

The State of Flow

When you do something long enough, you become a master of it and reach that state of flow. You begin to enjoy every moment of doing that thing. You certainly would have done something in your life that you didn’t wanted to do it before because of your dislike for it but once you started doing it, you started enjoying it and then time just passes away quickly and you start enjoying it. That is the State of Flow.