Written by: Anna Dafna, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
With life's constant demands and pressure thrown at us, one can quickly think that getting things done successfully is determined by external factors. But this type of external motivation is short-lived.
Luckily, there are these moments when you feel intrinsic inspiration from within, time stops, and you become one with the activity. Being in the zone, losing a sense of time, and stretching your mind and body voluntarily to its limits with effortless results that flow out of you, happen because you have entered a flow state.
What is Flow State?
A flow state is a powerful state of mind when someone feels fantastic, inspired, and focused on accomplishing something exciting and worthwhile. Flow state involves time transformation and transcendence and contributes to authentic happiness, wholeness, and wellness. When individuals are wholly involved, they immerse themselves and perform extremely efficiently at a peak level.
What is Peak Performance?
Peak performance is when an individual is performing at a peak level. The flow state is the pinnacle of peak performance. After transforming and shifting inertia, which is the opposite of flow, into the flow state and the flow state into an optimal action-oriented state, everyone with training and perseverance can achieve peak performance.
How do you get into Flow State?
Finding, staying, and reentering in the flow is a dynamic and ever-changing experience that does not happen by accident.
Here are eight tips to trigger Flow State:
1. Find The Inspiration
Connecting everything you do with your values and using the executive centre of your brain to master your priorities will ignite inspiration. You can find inspiration by creating your inspired personal mission statement and asking empowering questions: 'What do I want to achieve?' 'What are the benefits of taking inspired action now?' 'How does this activity help me move closer to my goal?'
2. Find Clarity And Set Goals
Outlining inspiring yet challenging projects and SMART goals with a clear purpose aligning with your personality and vision will grow momentum.
3. Eliminate The Chaos
You cannot experience flow with modern life's attention robbers. Eliminating distractions and multitasking will allow you to focus predominantly on your one task. Planning, prioritising and organising will increase your concentration and focus, allowing you to achieve powerful results. If the natural state of mind is chaos, start paying closer attention to your environment and mind details.
5. Manage Your Emotions
Are you able to discern opportunities when you are being anxious, unresourceful, or disempowered? Anxiety, overwhelm, and self-criticism are momentum killers because they lead to a fight, flight, or freeze state. On the other hand, positivity and when we can experience success and happiness are the heart and soul of the flow state.
6. Challenge Yourself
Select a task that will challenge you enough but not too much. You can set a goal that will have some calculated risk and reward. Finding the balance between challenge and skill-building avoids apathy and boredom and will push you out of your comfort zone and into a deeper state of flow. At the same time, select a goal pitched within your current skill set, so the task will not induce unnecessary anxiety or overwhelm. By trying new things regularly, not only will you become more skilled, but you will also be more likely to achieve an optimal state in the future.
7. Enjoy The Process
As important as the end goal is, flow requires mindfulness and enjoying every minute of the process. These positive emotions that accompany flow can reinforce personal development and growth. The positivity has the added benefit of increasing your self-esteem and confidence in the areas and skills you choose to develop and grow.
8. Finding Equilibrium
You can best achieve flow when your skill set aligns perfectly with the challenge the task presents because the flow is the conjoining among the level of your skillset and the size of the challenge. Flow is also congruent between action and awareness, cognition and behaviour, intention and application, conscious and unconscious. While we are open to novelty, we are laser-focused on the task at hand. We are enjoying the exploration, but we persist in the activity. We are integrating ourselves, and we feel connected, yet our self-consciousness is lost.
The good news is that the flow experience is universal, and anyone can access and cultivate the flow channel.
The Neuroscience Behind Flow
The brain's prefrontal cortex is responsible for higher-level activities that require conscious, executive, organisational, emotional control, and metacognitive skills. When someone is in a flow state, there may be a decrease in activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex. This reduced activity in the executive part of the brain during flow state may allow the subconscious mind and other areas of the brain to communicate and engage in a creative process, which may trigger a sense of distortion of time, loss of self-consciousness, and lack of inner critic.
In conclusion, cognitive abilities and intellectual demands must be in sync to achieve a flow state and peak performance.
For neuro-diverse individuals, creating appropriate challenges that match their developmental level and push them to grow further will help them optimise their confidence and performance. Designing or redefining these accommodations and modifications in school, university, work, business, and life can induce flow state and peak performance.
In education, business, or workplace settings, a flow state increases creativity. It cultivates innovative thinking, increases momentum and productivity and removes any resistance to get things done.
Anna Dafna, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Anna Dafna is a psychologist (MEd, MBPsS) affiliated with the British Psychological Society (BPS), accredited ADHD and executive function coach and qualified teacher (QTS). She is helping international neuro-distinct clients maximize happiness, confidence, and performance using a holistic and bespoke approach, her nearly two decades of specialist experience and expertise as well as the latest neuroscience and evidence-based tools. She has a global business that provides world-class, online coaching for children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD, ASD, dyslexia, executive function challenges and other needs. Her mission: To celebrate our uniqueness focusing on our superpowers and asking the right questions to empower and inspire from the inside and not the outside.
