{"id":2370,"date":"2015-08-01T21:43:01","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T21:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/?p=2370"},"modified":"2015-11-01T19:13:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T19:13:18","slug":"flow-in-the-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/01\/flow-in-the-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"– Flow: being in the zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flow:<\/a><\/h3>\n

When I first heard about Flow, I thought to myself, what an interesting concept. Here\u2019s a simple idea that says happiness can be attained by finding an activity where challenge and skill are maximized. It\u2019s also a daring idea because quantifying happiness in a single equation is an open invitation to criticism.<\/h3>\n

So, what is Flow? It\u2019s a mental state where you are fully immersed in the activity you\u2019re performing. It\u2019s feeling energized, motivated, and in focus while doing the thing you love. It\u2019s being fully absorbed in what you\u2019re doing to the extent of euphoria.<\/p>\n

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as: “a single-minded immersion, occurring at the highest levels of skill and challenge”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Flow
\nFlow is a musician jamming on a guitar, an artist creating a masterpiece, or a scientist discovering the next breakthrough medicine. It\u2019s the out of body experience felt by anyone who\u2019s in the zone while doing their own thing. It has applicability in education, sports, the workplace, etc. And for me as a life coach, it has great potential in the field of wellness and personal growth. If you can figure out the space where you\u2019re fully challenged and skillful then you would\u2019ve found your passion and purpose; the two things that are guaranteed to make your life meaningful.<\/p>\n

That being said, Flow isn\u2019t just about excitement and being pumped and energized. It can also be the simple enjoyment and the relaxation one feels when reading a wonderful book or lying down on the beach. So Flow, as I see it, is not necessarily an extreme sport or a great cup of coffee. It\u2019s not an end, or a means to an end. It\u2019s simply a guide. The starting point is self-awareness to uncover that one activity that makes you feel complete, followed by deliberate self-development that can help you reach high levels of skillfulness and mastery at the peak of that activity\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n

Depending on which activity you choose, Flow may be extremely simple to attain. Find an activity, immerse yourself in it, make sure it\u2019s challenging and get the necessary skills to master it. The formula is straight forward, but once you get there, Flow could be hard to maintain because of apathy, boredom, or anxiety.<\/p>\n

Less challenging tasks coupled with low skill levels produces lack of interest; apathy. When challenges are low, but one\u2019s skill level exceeds those challenges, you get boredom. And when challenges are so high that they exceed one\u2019s perceived skill level causing one great distress and uneasiness, there\u2019s anxiety. Consequently, Cs\u00edkszentmih\u00e1lyi says: “If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills”. In other words, never shy away from a challenge and be committed to continuous learning.<\/p>\n

Achieving Flow leads to a happier and more fulfilled life. So, imagine if your chosen activity is also your source of income. That\u2019s what\u2019s called: never working another day in your life. When I work with my clients, Flow is often at the top of the list in terms of the goals they want to achieve, and having experimented with Flow myself, I found it to be quite the life changing experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first heard about Flow, I thought to myself, what an interesting concept. Here\u2019s a simple idea that says happiness can be attained by finding an activity where challenge and skill are maximized. It\u2019s also a daring idea because quantifying happiness in a single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2370"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2556,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions\/2556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelogicaloptimist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}