Flow Effect Training

7/27/2019 Flow Effect Training

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Researchers define flow as an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we feel our best

and perform our best. Some of us know this state by other namesrunners high or being in the

zone or being unconsciousbut whatever the lingo, the experience is unforgettable.

If youve ever lost an afternoon to a great conversation or gotten so involved in a work project that all

else was forgotten, then youve tasted this experience. In flow, we are so focused on the task at

hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. All

aspects of performance go through the roof.

We call this experience flowbecause that is the sensation conferred. In flow, every action, each

decision, leads effortlessly, fluidly, seamlessly to the next. Its high-speed problem solving; its being

swept away by the river of ultimate performance.

Without the flow state, explains skateboarding legend Danny Way, without that enhanced focus,there would be no stepping up my gamethat state is the foundation of stepping up the game.

150 years of research backs up such claims. A 10-year McKinsey study, for example, found top

executives are 5 timesi.e. 500 percentmore productive in flow. In studies run by the U.S.

military, snipers in flow learned between 200-500 percent faster than normal. Creativity gets a 7x

boost. And this list goes on.

Yet theres a rub. Flow might be the most desirable state on earth, but its also the most elusive.

While seekers have spent centuries trying, no one has found a reliable way to reproduce theexperience, let alone with enough consistency to radically accelerate performance. The one group of

people for whom this is not the case is with action and adventure sports athletes.

In fact, so good have these athletes become at harnessing flow that, over the course of the past 25

years, they have utilized the state to push the limits of the possible faster and farther than ever

before in history. In this evolutionary eye-blink, in sports like surfing, skiing, skateboarding, rock

climbing, mountain biking, etc., athletes have achieved staggering, near-exponential growth in

ultimate human performancewhen life or limb is on the line. Surfers are riding 100-foot waves,

snowboarders are doing aerials that werent thought possible, and rock climbers are soloing cliffswith no ropes that no human should be able to do.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. So the question is, why is it happening now?

The answer is actually quite simple. In all other activities flow is a luxury, but at the upper edges of

action/adventure sports, a fundamental necessity. The state is the only reason these athletes are


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surviving the big mountains, big waves, and big rivers. When youre pushing the limits of ultimate

human performance, the choice is stark: its flow or die.

Alongside the other researchers at theFlow Genome Project,I have spent the past 15 years working

with these action and adventure sports athletes to figure out what theyre doing to harness flow sosuccessfully and how to apply this information in all domains in society.

And thats exactly what Im going to cover in this post

A Brief Introduction To Flow Hacking

Flow states have triggersi.e., pre-conditions that lead to more flow. There are 15 in total and they

fall into four categoriespsychological, environmental, social, and creative. Well go into greater

detail below, but there are two things to know right off the bat.

First, flow followsfocus.It is a state of total absorption. Thus, all 15 of these flow triggers are ways ofheightening and tightening attention.

Second, the reason todays action and adventure sportsathletes are getting into flow so successfully

is because theyve built their lives around the state. Theyve packed their lives with all 15 of these

triggers.

Environmental Triggers

Environmental triggersa.k.a. external triggers are qualities in the environment that drive people

deeper into the zone.

High consequences is the first trigger. When theres danger lurking in the environment, we dont

need to concentrate extra hard to drive focus, the elevated risk levels do the job for us. Since

survival is fundamental to any organism, our brains first priority is to scour all incoming information

for any sign of a threat and focus intently upon it.

To hack the high consequence flow trigger, remember that risk is always relative. While some

danger must be courted for flow, confrontations with mortality are not required. In fact, even physical

risk itself is optional. Take intellectual risks, social risks, creative risks, emotional risks. A shy man

need only cross the room to say hello to an attractive woman to trigger this rush. In casual

conversation, merely telling someone the truth can serve the same purpose. To reach flow,explains Harvard psychiatrist Ned Hallowell, one must be willing to take risks. The lover must lay

bare his soul and risk rejection and humiliation to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk

physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and

despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average personyou and memust be

willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.
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A rich environment, the next environmental trigger,is a combination platter of novelty,

unpredictability, and complexitythree elements that catch and hold our attention much like risk.

Novelty means both danger and opportunity. To our forbearers, a strange scent in the wind could be

prey or predator, but either way it paid to pay attention. Unpredictability means we dont know what

happens next, thus we pay extra attention to what happens next. Complexity, when theres lots ofsalient information coming at us at once, does more of the same.

Action and adventure athletes taste these experiences so often because nature is jam-packed with

novelty, unpredictability, and complexity. Rivers are living entities. Same with the mountains and the

waves. In places where anything can happen, a wandering mind is a dangerous mind, thus rich

environments automatically tighten focus and drive flow.

And for those of us who want to take advantage of this fact, yet have no interest in action and

adventure sports? Simple: Seek out complexity, especially in nature. Go stare at the night sky. Walk

in the woods. If you cant find big nature, contemplate the small. The reason there are so many

clichs about universes inside of dew drops is because there are universes inside of dew drops. No

dew to contemplate? Use technology to induce awe: surf your city with Google Earth or go see an

IMAX movie.

Deep embodiment is a kind of total physical awareness. Fifty percent of our nerve endings reside in

our hands, feet, and face. We have five major senses. We also have proprioception to detect our

bodys position in space, and vestibular awareness to help us maintain our balance.

Action and adventure sports demand deep embodiment, says professional kayaker Doug Ammons.

Especially kayaking. Big rivers accelerate you in every direction at once. This puts the vestibular

system into overdrive. This isnt just your mind paying more attentionsuddenly your entire body is

paying attention. When this happens, its outside our conscious capabilities. There are no words

You are literally part of the flow of the world.

If we want to pull the deep embodiment trigger in less extreme environments, then we simply have to

learn to pay attention to all these input streams in those environments. This isnt hard.Zen walking

meditationteaches an open-senses/all-senses awareness. Balance and agility training (like playing

hopscotch or running ladder drills) enhance proprioception and vestibular awareness. Yoga, Tai Chi,

and just about every martial art blend both together. And if technology is more your speed, there are

video games for both Xboxs Kinect and Nintendos Wii that do the same.

Psychological Triggers

Psychological, or internal triggers, are conditions in our inner environment that create more flow.

Theyre psychological strategies for driving attention into the now.
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Back in the 1970s, pioneering flow researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identified clear goals,

immediate feedback, and the challenge/skills ratio as the three most critical. Lets take a closer look.

Clear goals, our first trigger, tell us where and when to put our attention. When goals are clear, the

mind doesnt have to wonder about what to do or what to do nextit already knows. Thus,concentration tightens, motivation heightens, and extraneous information gets filtered out. Action

and awareness start to merge, and were pulled even deeper into now. Just as importantly, in the

now, theres no past or future and a lot less room for selfwhich are the intruders most likely to yank

us to the then.

This also tells us something about emphasis. When considering clear goals, most have a tendency

to skip over the adjective (clear) to get to the noun (goals). When told to set clear goals, we

immediately visualize ourselves on the Olympic podium, the Academy Award stage, or the Fortune

500 list, saying, Ive been picturing this moment since I was 15, and think thats the point.

But those podium moments can pull us out of the present. Even if success is seconds away, its still

a future event subject to hopes, fears, and all sorts of now-crushing distraction. Think of the long list

of infamous sporting chokes: the dropped pass in the final seconds of the Superbowl; the missed

putt at the end of the Augusta Masters. In those moments, the gravity of the goal pulled the

participants out of the now, when, ironically, the now was all they needed to win.

If creating more flow is the aim, then the emphasis falls on clear and not goals. Clarity gives us

certainty. We know what to do and where to focus our attention while doing it. When goals are clear,

meta-cognition is replaced by in-the-moment cognition, and the self stays out of the picture.Applying this idea in our daily life means breaking tasks into bite-size chunks, and setting goals

accordingly. A writer, for example, is better off trying to pen three great paragraphs at a time, rather

than attempting one great chapter. Think challenging, yet manageablejust enough stimulation to

shortcut attention into the now, not enough stress to pull you back out again.

Immediate feedback, our next internal trigger, is another shortcut into the now. The term refers to a

direct, in-the-moment coupling between cause and effect. As a focusing mechanism, immediate

feedback is something of an extension of clear goals. Clear goals tell us what were doing;

immediate feedback tells us how to do it better.

If we know how to improve performance in real time, the mind doesnt go off in search of clues for

betterment; we can keep ourselves fully present and fully focused and thus much more likely to be in

flow.

Of course, for action and adventure athletes, getting the feedback they need is automatic. As

National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) founder Paul Petzoldt once said: In the mountains,


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feedback is instant. Same with the rivers, rocks, and oceans. In these environments, the laws of

physics deliver instantaneous, unmediated feedback. No judges, no scorecards, no review in

the New York Times. Just cause and effect.

This built-in feedback is another reason extreme athletes have found flow so frequently, but if were

interested in pulling this trigger without help from the laws of physics? No mystery here. Tightenfeedback loops. Put mechanisms in place so attention doesnt have to wander. Ask for more input.

How much input? Well, forget quarterly reviews. Think daily reviews. Studies have found that in

professions with less direct feedback loopsstock analysis, psychiatry, medicineeven the best get

worse over time. Surgeons, by contrast, are the only class of physician that improve the longer

theyre out of medical school. Why? Mess up on thetable and someone dies. Thats immediate

feedback.

The challenge/skills ratio, the last of our internal flow triggers, is arguably the most important. The

idea behind this trigger is that attention is most engaged (i.e., in the now), when theres a very

specific relationship between the difficulty of a task and our ability to perform that task. If the

challenge is too great, fear swamps the system. If the challenge is too easy, we stop paying

attention. Flow appears near the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what

scientists call the flow channelthe spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch; not

hard enough to make us snap.

This sweet spot keeps attention locked in the present. When the challenge is firmly within the

boundaries of known skillsmeaning Ive done it before and am fairly certain I can do so again the

outcome is predetermined. Were interested, not riveted. But when we dont know whats going to

happen next, we pay more attention to the next. Uncertainty is our rocket ride into the now.

Social Triggers

There is also a collective version of a flow state known as group flow. This is what happens when a

bunch of people enter the zone together. If youve ever seen a fourth quarter comeback in football,

where everyone is always in the right place at the right time and the result looks more like a well-

choreographed modern dance than anything that normally happens on the gridironthats group

flow in action.

But its not just athletes who play this game. In fact, group flow is incredibly common in startups.

When the whole team is driving towards a singular purpose with incredible speedagain, group flow

in action.

Salim Ismail, former head of innovation at Yahoo turned Singularity University global ambassador,

put it this way: Because entrepreneurship is about the non-stop navigation of uncertainty, being in

flow is a critical aspect of success. Flow states allow an entrepreneur to stay open and alert to


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possibilities, which could exist in any partnership, product insight, or customer interaction. The more

flow created by a startup team, the higher the chance of success. In fact, if your startup team is not

in a near-constant group flow state, you will not succeed. Peripheral vision gets lost and insights

dont follow.

So how to precipitate group flow? This is where social triggers come into play. These triggers are

ways to alter social conditions to produce more group flow. A number of them are already familiar.

The first threeserious concentration; shared, clear goals; good communication(i.e., lots of

immediate feedback)are the collective versions of the psychological triggers identified by

Csikszentmihalyi.

Two more: equal participationand an element of risk(mental, physical, whatever), are self-

explanatory given what we already know about flow. The remaining five require a little more

information.

Familiarity, our next trigger, means the group has a common language, a shared knowledge base,

and a communication style based on unspoken understandings. It means everybody is always on

the same page, and, when novel insights arise, momentum is not lost due to the need for lengthy

explanation.

Then theresblending egoswhich is kind of a collective version of humility. When egos have been

blended, no ones hogging the spotlight and everyones thoroughly involved.

A sense of controlcombines autonomy (being free to do what you want) and competence (being

good at what you do). Its about getting to choose your own challenges and having the necessary

skills to surmount them.

Close listeningoccurs when were fully engaged in the here and now. In conversation, this isnt

about thinking about what witty thing to say next, or what cutting sarcasm came last. Rather, its

generating real-time, unplanned responses to the dialogue as it unfolds.

Always say yes,our final trigger, means interactions should be additive more than argumentative.

The goal here is the momentum, togetherness, and innovation that comes from ceaselessly

amplifying each others ideas and actions. Its a trigger based on the first rule of improv comedy. If I

open a sketch with, Hey, theres a blue elephant in the bathroom, then No, theres not, is the

wrong response. With the denial, the scene goes nowhere. But if the reply is affirmative, Yeah,

sorry, there was no more space in the cereal cupboard, then that story goes someplace interesting.

Creative Triggers

Creativity. If you look under the hood of creativity, what you see is pattern recognition (the brains

ability to link new ideas together) and risk-taking (the courage to bring those new ideas into the

world). Both of these experiences produce powerful neurochemical reactions and the brain rides

these reactions deeper into flow.

This means, for those of us who want more flow in our lives, we have to think different, simple as

that. Instead of tackling problems from familiar angles, go at them backwards and sideways and with

style. Go out of your way to stretch your imagination. Massively up the amount of novelty in your


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lifethe research shows that new environments and experiences are often the jumping off point for

new ideas (more opportunity for pattern recognition). Most importantly, make creativity a value and a

virtue.

This is exactly what action and adventure sports athletes did. Professional climber, skier,photographer, and filmmaker Jimmy Chin explains: When people think about action and adventure

sport athletes the first thingoften the only thingthey think about is the physical risk involved. But

Ive gotten to know and work with an extremely diverse group of these athletesfrom new school

freeskiers through grizzled 8,000-meter-peak mountaineering veteransand Ive come to one

conclusion about everyone, myself included. The greatest athletes arent interested in the

greatest risks.I mean, sometimes theyre taken, sometimes not, but those physical risks are a by-

product of a much deeper desire to take creative risks. Dont be fooled by the danger. In action

and adventure sports, creativity is always the point.

___________________________________

1. Increase the strength of your focus gradually. If you decide you want to physically get in

shape, but are starting at ground zero, the worst thing you can do is to throw yourself into an

extreme training programyoull end up injured, discouraged, or both, and youll quit before you

even really get started.

Likewise,if your attention span is currently quite flabby, its best to slowly build up the weight you

ask it to lift. In this series weve mentioned trying the Pomodoro Method in which you work for, say,

45 minutes straight and then allow yourself a 15-minute break. But for many of us, 45 minutes might

as well be a mind marathon!

So start out with a pretty easy goal and work your way up from there. Set a timer for 5 minutes and

focus completelyon your work/reading for that time period. Then take a 2-minute break before going

at it again for another 5 minutes. Each day, add another 5 minutes to your focused work time, along

with an additional 2 minutes to your break time. In 9 days, you should be able to work for 45 minutes

straight before you allow yourself an 18-minute break. Once you get comfortable with that set-up,

you can work to lengthen your focus sessions a little, while shortening your break times.

2. Create a distraction to-do list.Because the internet has made any bit of information instantly

accessible, we tend to want to look something up the moment it crosses our mind. I wonder what

the weather will be like tomorrow? What year did that movie come out? I wonder whats newin

my Facebook feed? Consequently, well toggle away from what were working on the instant these

questions or thoughts pop into our minds. Problem is, once we get distracted,it takes on average

25(!) minutesto return to our original task. Plus, shifting our attention back and forth drains its

strength.

So to stay on task, whenever something you want to check out pops into your head, just write it

down on a piece of paper next to you (or perhaps in Evernote for you tech types), and promise
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yourself youll be able to look it up once your focusing session is over and your break time has

arrived.

3. Build your willpower. Voluntary attention and willpower are intimately entwined. Our willpower

allows us to deliberately ignore distractions while staying focused on the task at hand. It would serveyour attention span well toreview our in-depth article on strengthening your willpower.

4. Meditate. Not only does meditation help keep you cool, calm, and collected, research has also

shown again and again thatmindfulness meditationcan boost your attention span significantly.

In one study, 140 volunteers took part in an eight-week course in meditation training. After the eight

weeks, all the volunteers showed measurable improvements in attention span, as well as other

executive mental functions.

You dont have to spend your days meditating in a monastery to take advantage of its attention -

boosting power. Research has shown that just 10 to 20 minutes of meditation a day will do the trick.Whats more, youll even see improvements in your attention after just four days.

So if you want the power to focus on your studies for hours at a time, start your mornings off just

focusing on your breath for a few minutes.

5. Practice mindfulness throughout the day.In addition to dedicating 10 to 20 minutes a day to

mindfulness meditation, attention experts recommend finding opportunities to practice mindfulness

throughout your day. Mindfulness is simply focusing completely on what youre doing, slowing down,

and observing all of the physical and emotional sensations you are experiencing in that moment.You can practice mindfulness when you eat as you take time to really chew your food and

concentrate on its flavors and texture. You can practice mindfulness when you shave; as you smell

your shaving cream, note the pleasure of applying a warm lather to your face, and slowly drag the

razor across your stubble.

Incorporating short sessions of mindfulness throughout your day will strengthen and expand your

attention span for the times when you really need it.

Mindfulness can also help you push back against distractions as they arise. If youre working on atask and feel that restless itch to go do something else, think to yourself, Be here now. In that

moment, bring your awareness to your body and your breath. After a few seconds of focusing on

your breath, youll notice that the distraction is no longer present and that youre ready to get back to

work.

6. Exercise (your body).Not only can you compare exercising your mind to exercising your body,

doing the latter actually directly benefits the former.Researchershave found that students who
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engaged in moderate physical exercise before taking a test that measured attention spans

performed better than students who didnt exercise. The researchers found that exercise primarily

helps our brains ability to ignore distractions, although they arent exactly sure why. I would venture

to say that the discipline it takes to push through the pain of a workout strengthens the same supply

of willpower that we use to ignore the itch of distractions in order to keep working/focusing.7. Memorize stuff.Weve talked about memorization on the site before.Besides being a cool bar

trick and providing you a fount of poems to recite at the drop of a hat, memorizing stuff is an

excellent way to exercise your mind muscles. Make it a goal to memorize a poem or a verse of

scripture each week.

What Abou t At tent ion Training Games?

Brain training games have received a lot of press in recent years. Youve probably seen

commercials for Lumosity or Brain Age on Nintendo DS. The games creators claim that spending

just a few minutes a day playing can improve your attention, memory, and mental agility. However,

the research on the veracity of these claims is divided.

Some studies indicate that brain training games can help improve attention in children with ADHD or

in the elderly, but that they dont benefit young, healthy adults.

Otherstudiesshow that while certain brain training games can boost attention levels, those gains

dont crossover to other areas of life. In other words, brain training games can help people pay better

attention and do better at brain training games, but they wont he lp people pay better attention in

class or while studying.

Arecent studyshowed a certain type of brain training game called n-back can improve working

memory (an important aspect of attention) and that improvement can crossover to other cognitive

challenges.

So what does this all mean?The verdict is still out onwhether these brain games will definitively

increase attention spans and further research needs to be done. It wont hurt to try them out as part

of your attention training program, but include the other suggestions outlined here as well.

8. Read long stuff slowly. Fight the TL;DR culture. With the rise of tablets, e-readers, and

smartphones, some studies indicate that reading of e-content in general has gone up nearly 40%.

This is a good thing, right? Youd think so, except thatSlaterecently did some research with the help

of website analytics company Chartbeart that determined that onlya paltry 5% of readerswho startan article online will actually finish it. Whats more, 38% of readers never scroll beyond the first few

paragraphs. So to say that reading in general has gone up would be misleading. What were actually

doing is more scrolling, and less engaging.

At the same time, were reading less books;a recent studyshowed that 25% of Americans didnt

read a single book last year.
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This is truly a shame. While long definitely does not automatically equal better, there are certain

complex ideas that are impossible to condense into short list posts and require an entire book (or

several books) to flesh out. To skip something simply because it is long is to miss out on a whole

world of knowledge available only to those willing to dive deeper. Theres definitely a place for

skimming online, and learning a little about a lot. But you should also make room for plunging into afew subjects whole hog.

If you havent read a book in awhile, I challenge you to pick one up tonight. Really try to dig into

it.Learn how to read a book properly;itll change your life.

Besides books, make an effort to read one or two long articles a week. Longform journalism, as its

called, is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, and the amount of quality, in-depth content available

is at an all-time high. A few of my favorite sources of longform articles:

Longreads.com Longform.org

Arts and Letters Daily

The Economist

The New Yorker

The Art of Manliness (Always strives to publish comprehensive posts that are as useful as

possible. Also, I hear its founder has a glorious mustache.)

9. Stay curious. The more curious you are about the world, the greater the stamina of your

concentration will be when it comes to any endeavor. William James suggests a simple experiment

to test how staying curious about the object of your attention can prolong your ability to stay focused

on it:

Try to attend steadfastly to a dot on the paper or on the wall. You presently find that one or the

other of two things has happened: either your field of vision has become blurred, so that you now

see nothing distinct at all, or else you have involuntarily ceased to look at the dot in question, and

are looking at something else. But, if you ask yourself successive questions about the dot,how big

it is, how far, of what shape, what shade of color, etc.; in other words, if you turn it over, if you think

of it in various ways, and along with various kinds of associates,you can keep your mind on it for a

comparatively long time. This is what the genius does, in whose hands a given topic coruscates and

grows.

Charles Darwin was a master of this concept. His contemporaries marveled at his ability to spend an

entire day just staring at animals and plants. Darwins secret was his unflagging curiosity he could

discover more and more about a single object by homing in on various details, examining it in

different ways, asking new questions. Bit by bit he would peel back its layers.
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10. Practice attentive listening.Focus isnt just useful for intellectual endeavors. Its also an

essential interpersonal skill.The ability to be fully present with a loved one or friendbuilds your

rapport, intimacy, and trust and with them. At the same time, making an effort to focus all your

energy on someone else strengthens your concentration muscles overall. Its win-win. So next time

youre talking with your main squeeze, put away your phone andlisten as attentively as possible.11. Perform concentration exercises. The above exercisesnot only boost your focus, but offer

other benefits as well. Every once in a while, however, its good to do some exercises that are aimed

purely at boosting your concentration.Here are twelve to try.

Series Conclusion

Modernity has given us a lot of comforts and conveniences, but it has also unleashed a torrent of

stimuli competing for our attention. To live a truly flourishing life amidst this cacophony of

distractions, mastering your attention is key. At the end of your life, who youve become, what youve

learned and accomplished, and whos there at the end with you will be the sum total of what you

chose to pay attention to each year, day, and hour of your life. Will a series of cat videos flash before

your eyes? Or will you look back on the deep conversations you had with your family and friends, the

books that changed your life, and the little details you discovered in all the places you visited?

We hope our series on attention has gotten you to think about this increasingly precious commodity

in a new light, as well as inspired you to take steps to improve it. Youll be amazed how much your

life can improve just by paying attention to your attention.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/11/06/the-3-elements-of-charisma-presence/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/11/06/the-3-elements-of-charisma-presence/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/11/06/the-3-elements-of-charisma-presence/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/08/listen-up-part-ii-15-techniques-to-improve-our-listening/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/08/listen-up-part-ii-15-techniques-to-improve-our-listening/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/08/listen-up-part-ii-15-techniques-to-improve-our-listening/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/08/12-concentration-exercises-from-1918/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/08/12-concentration-exercises-from-1918/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/08/12-concentration-exercises-from-1918/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/08/12-concentration-exercises-from-1918/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/05/08/listen-up-part-ii-15-techniques-to-improve-our-listening/http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/11/06/the-3-elements-of-charisma-presence/

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