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The secret for elite performance — a look inside a high-performance brain!
Have you ever felt in complete control of a situation? Like it would not matter if anything went wrong because you would be able to solve it?
The Flow state is exactly this: a state of consciousness where you feel and perform your best. A state of total focus and absorption in what you are doing, where everything but the tasks at hand disappears and all aspects of physical and mental performance skyrocket!
This term was first described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975 and he identifies eight characteristics of flow:
- Complete concentration on the task;
- Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback;
- Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down);
- The experience is intrinsically rewarding;
- Effortlessness and ease;
- There is a balance between challenge and skills;
- Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination;
- There is a feeling of control over the task.
Not only do you perform your best, but work becomes effortless… So learning what to do to achieve this state can be incredibly useful. Throughout the next posts, I will delve more into this topic and into what elite performers do to “get in the zone”!
“Time slows down. Self vanishes. Action and awareness merge. Welcome to flow.” — Steven Kotler
