Flow

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Flow
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Defining Flow

• It is the state of consciousness where one
  becomes totally absorbed in what one is doing, to
  the exclusion of all other thoughts and emotions.
• Mind and body are working together effortlessly.
• Flow is also about enjoyment.

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Why Is Flow Important and Why Do I Need It?

• Achieving peak performance
• To enjoy the experience
• You will find yourself taking on greater
  challenges

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Achieving Peak Performance

• The mind set accompanying flow tends to push a
  person to his or her limits. It is difficult to
  have the body perform to high levels when the
  mind is not focused.

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To Enjoy the Experience

• If you are so focused on winning you may miss
  the mental state that is likely to help bring it
  about. Even worse you will miss the enjoyment of
  the experience (absorbing of moments).

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You Will Find Yourself Taking on Greater
Challenges

• You will find yourself increasing your skills in
  order to maintain the experience of flow.

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Anatomy of EnjoymentHow to Bring Joy Into Your
Life...

• Confront tasks we have a chance of completing
• We must be able to concentrate on what we are
  doing
• Concentration is possible because the task
  undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate
  feedback
• One acts with a deep but effortless involvement
  that removes from awareness, everyday frustrations

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Anatomy of EnjoymentHow to Bring Joy Into Your
Life...

• Allows person to exercise control over their
  actions
• Control for self disappears
• Duration of time is altered
• (Source Mihaly Csikszenthihalyi)

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Conditions of Flow

• Sense of discovery
• Creative feeling of transporting person into a
  new reality
• Pushed person to higher levels of performance
• Transforms the self by making it more complex

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Fundamental DimensionsEach Person Should Possess
These Nine Components to Achieve the Maximum Mind
Set for Flow to Occur.

• 6. Sense of control
• 7. Loss of self-consciousness
• 8. Transformation of time
• 9. Autotelic experience

• 1. Challenge-skills balance
• 2. Action-awareness merging
• 3.Clear goals
• 4. Unambiguous feedback
• 5. Concentration on the task at hand

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Challenge-skills Balance

• Skills and challenges need to exceed the person
  stretching them to new levels.
• Have confidence that you can achieve these new
  challenges and skills.
• What you believe you can do will determine your
  experience more than your actual abilities.

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Action-awareness Merging

• Mind and body fuse into one, at one with your
  actions.
• Feel you have skills to meet challenges and focus
  all your attention on the task at hand.

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Clear Goals

• Everything is clearly set out ahead of time so
  there is not doubt or second guessing.
• Visualize before the event.
• Helps focus the mind on the activity to help set
  the stage for the flow experience.

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Unambiguous Feedback

• Body, coaches, fans, other players.
• Assess how well you are doing in relationship to
  your goals and stay in tune with performance.

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Concentration on the Task at Hand

• In flow there is no room for any thoughts other
  than what you are doing and feeling right at the
  moment the now
• Disciplined mind

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Sense of Control

• Unshatterable self-esteem take on the world
• You believe you have the required skills for the
  task at hand
• Lack of worrying
• Too much control or seeking control can push you
  out of flow
• Too little control causes anxiety to set in

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Loss of Self-consciousness

• Sense of self is positive
• Let go of worrying how others see you

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Transformation of Time

• Transformation of time is a by product of total
  concentration
• A focused mind picks up on things more clearly

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Autotelic Experience

• Intrinsically rewarding
• You enjoy being in the flow so much you want to
  experience more