Why Being in ‘Flow’ Can Change Your Life (2022)
Hi friends, and welcome to my latest blog. I hope you enjoy the read, however, first I have a bit of a confession to make. I’ve been a little out of kilter since the passing of ER II. Out of respect, I didn’t blog during the mourning period, and inadvertently it disrupted my flow with my reading and writing, but next week I have some time off from work and the plan is to re-set and re-prioritise.
My Week
I’m not sure if it comes through in my writing but I am a very introverted person and with that comes some nuances of character and that is something I will explore further another time. In the meantime, if you are in a leadership role in particular, please do take a look at my article Article Why Introverts Make Great Leaders — Jackie Mandeir – anyway I digress, where I was going with this is, that last week has been extremely ‘busy’. Last Thursday I was honoured to have been invited to my works excellence awards evening, which was a late evening and then Saturday I was out watching Robbie Williams perform at Resorts World Arena, Birmingham, which was absolutely amazing. But, this in fact leaves me exhausted and takes time for me to recover from the social aspects.
So back to disrupted ‘flow’ – flow is a word that is used to describe a cognitive state where someone is completely immersed in an activity that promotes intense concentration, creativity and immersion in doing something enjoyable where you totally lose awareness of time passing and a sort of detachment from oneself.
The term was first coined in the 1960s by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian-American psychologist. Mihaly studied creativity and spoke about artists who were so immersed in the ‘flow’ of creating that they lost all sense of time, hunger, and fatigue.
So you may be wondering about ‘flow’ and how to achieve it, but you most probably are in ‘flow’ at times but never really labelled it as such. Flow is often achieved when doing things like running, yoga, painting, reading, gardening, and knitting – the list is endless.
When we are in flow, we have a sense of freedom from the anxieties of daily living, so why wouldn’t you spend some time thinking about and then doing the things that tilt you into a state of ‘flow’? Below is an illustration.
Image with thanks: www.tolstoytherapy.com
The beautiful place between anxiety and boredom is ‘flow’
Mihaly also wrote that during flow, “concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears and the sense of time becomes distorted.
One caveat to think about is that Mihaly states that the task must be “autotelic” – that is, it must be done for its own reward. For me, I am most in flow when I am reading, writing and watercolour painting.
So on to sharing my favourite things this week:
Quote of the Week
“A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it ”
YouTube
Watch Ted Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on what flow means: https://youtu.be/fXIeFJCqsPs
Question of the Week
What do you already do that puts you in a state of ‘flow’?
Thank you for reading. Bye for now.
Jackie