As Steven Kotler describes 'The FLOW State' as where we feel our best and perform our best. Where we feel Selflessness, Timelessness, Effortlessness, and Richness (of information). It is the only time when our brain releases all five pleasure chemicals at once and we forget about everything and become one with the work.
According to Steven Kotler (creator of 'Flow Genome Project' and writer of New York Times Bestselling book 'Rise of Superman' & 'Stealing Fire'), in flow state productivity increases by 500% and creativity increases by 400%.
Here I'm sharing ideas from the books 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and 'Stealing Fire' by Steven Kotler.
What Happens in Brain
After 90 minutes of uninterrupted focus, we can enter the FLOW state. At this time our brain releases Dopamine and Norepinephrine which increases our heartbeats and improves our focus and our mind goes from waking beta state to light dreaming alpha state. Now our prefrontal cortex beings to shut down, as a result, that the voice in our head that always doubts our thinking and distracts us, goes away. Then our brain releases Endorphins for that all of your pain and stress just vanishes, and also Anandamide which is the bliss chemical, which improves our lateral thinking or out-of-the-box thinking. After that our brain goes from alpha to quasi-hypnotic theta state of mind, when our brain releases Serotonin and Oxytocin that make us happy and we feel oneness with the work. Scientists say this state 'The source code of Intrinsic Motivation' because it is the only state of mind when all the five pleasure chemicals (Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Anandamide, Serotonin, and Oxytocin) release at the same time.
Feeling in FLOW State
In-state of flow "Your mind is not wandering, you are totally involved in what you are doing."
In the state of flow, we feel STER — Selflessness, Timelessness, Effortlessness, and Richness
- Selflessness: Our inner voice shuts down and we become one with the work.
- Timelessness: The sense of time distorted, sometimes 5 minutes feel like 5 hours and vice versa.
- Effortlessness: Every work is done effortlessly.
- Richness: We can collect information and process them with ease.
For a chess player in a tournament in the state of flow, "...the concentration is like breathing—you never think of it. The roof could fall in and, if it misses you, you would be unaware of it."
For a rock climber in the state of flow, "You are so involved what you are doing [that] you aren't thinking of yourself as separate from the immediate activity... You don't see yourself as separate from what you are doing."
Getting into FLOW State
Flow state is one of the most addictive states although it's good because this state can reduce the time of our by half (500% productivity increase) and become much more creative. For getting into the state of flow we have to keep in mind the following factors. These will help us to reach the flow state more easily.
FREEDOM from Thoughts
"Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don't control what you think, You can't control what you do."
We don't need to be like Yogis who have full control of their thoughts by long-time meditation. We just need to learn some of that and apply it in our everyday life. For that, we can practice mindfulness meditation. We also can practice meta-awareness.
Meta-awareness: Becoming aware of what we’re thinking right at the moment. This is one of the best practices for managing our attention. So for this practice we can set a timer every 10 minutes, when the timer stops just notice what I'm thinking at that moment - is it about the work what I'm doing then just set another timer for 10 minutes and go on, but at that time if you are thinking something that is not related to the work - then just write the thought down in a notepad and gently take your mind to the desired work.
"You have to let it all go. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind" — Morpheus in Matrix
Clear Goal & Feedback
Getting into a state of Flow, we need to define our goal very clearly. We can write it down on paper with a clear endpoint or finish line i.e. there should be a clear indication of completion of the work just like submitting a project or publishing this post.
After creating a clear goal, we need clear feedback. For that, you can track your progress in any app or you can check the box of "Writing 2 blog post for this week" (it's for me) or something like that. We just need to see the progress that will keep us going for the next step.
FOCUS
"Flow follows Focus" or we can say just the opposite. If we can enter a deep focus state or Hyper Focus, we can easily get into the flow state. I have discusses how to enter a focus state in this article 'Laser Focus' and you can also refer to this book summary 'Hyper Focus'.
Before getting into a flow state we should know what type of work can take us to the flow state.
This a graph of Challenge vs Skill. If the challenge and skill required for the work both are low then it falls in apathy, here we never feel motivated to the work. Again if the challenge is high but our skill is low, then we feel anxiety, we think we can't do this work.
If the challenge of the work is low and our skill is high, we feel relax, we can do such work with ease, but getting into the flow we just need to increase the challenge. If we can increase the challenge to 104% from our current skill level, we can get into the flow. The challenge is just a little bit high from our skill level, this type of work takes us to a flow state. To increase the challenge you can just shorten the time for that work.
We also can enter in the state of flow from arousal state where the challenge is high but skill is moderate. Then we can increase our skill by learning new things and get into the flow state.
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We all have experienced a flow state in our life at least once. We just need to get into the state more easily. After reading this article I hope I have helped you to get the flow state more easily. If you found it helpful please share.
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