The word ‘flow’ immediately relates to the transfer of a substance from one position to another. When you say ‘free flowing’, that means ‘letting go’. In Fluid Mechanics, ‘Flow’ refers to the classification of fluid motion depending on the characteristics of Velocity, Pressure, Viscosity etc based on which a fluid is said to be in Laminar Flow, Turbulent Flow, Transitional Flow, Steady Flow, Unsteady Flow etc.
There is another meaning for ‘flow’ from the psychological perspective – it is a state of your mind when your challenges and skills match and provides an opportunity for you to peak in your performance, when you experience full engagement with the present. Not only in sports where it is also called ‘to be in the Zone’, Flow can be applied to your life in general in order to be at your best in whatever you do. There are nine dimensions to Flow:
- Challenge-Skill balance: In Flow state, you will enhance your skills beyond the average level to meet and succeed over your challenges, which are actually your perceptions of them, rather than the potential of the challenges themselves.
- Action – Awareness merging: Flow brings you to be one with the activity with a feeling of automaticity (the ability to perform a task without conscious thought or effort).
- Clarity of Goals: Goals should be divided into smaller goals and each one accomplished systematically to achieve the overall Closely associating with your clear goals is the processing of how performance is progressing in relation to your goals. You may recall the popular acronym of SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.
- Unambiguous Feedback: Since every task is dynamic and there will be changes en route, your periodic feedback on the performance gives you the information of how his challenge-skill balance is prevailing and provides areas for modification. For this, your feedback should be unambiguous.
- Concentration on the Task: Your being fully focused and immersed in the present on the specific task and nullifying any potential distraction epitomizes your Flow state.
- Present-centered Focus: A sense of control over what you are doing without the opponent or challenge dominating you mentally and physically empowers you and frees you from a fear of failure, self doubt or even fear of success.
- Loss of Self-Consciousness: In Flow state, you will not be bothered about what others think or judge about your performance. This lack of concern will enable you to be authoritative and autonomous is your thoughts and actions which will bring out the best results for you.
- Time Transformation: When you are in Flow, you will not realise how much time has elapsed and you will lose track of You may experience that time stops or slows down and or passes too quickly.
- Autotelic experience: In Greek, auto=Self and telos=Good and together Autotelic is the intrinsically rewarding experience of an activity irrespective of the outcome or Any experience in the Flow state will you an intense feeling of satisfaction and contentment equal to your joy of winning or succeeding.
It is useful for you to understand these nine dimensions and practice them in your daily life so that Flow state will be achieved. In due course, your mastery of these skills will elevate your performance from average level to peak level and consistently so thereafter. May flow state flow in you !
(The author of this article is D.Manivannan (Mani) from Chennai. He has completed Certifications in Life Skills Facilitation, Career Guidance, Master Practitioner Course in NLP and currently pursuing PG in Psychology.)
