Understanding the science behind optimal performance and why finding your own flow changes everything.
Those of you who have known me for a long time will know I am a passionate scuba diver and lover of the underwater world, those who don’t know me so well may be wondering what fish, flow and neutral buoyancy have got to do with business.
Let’s start with Neutral Buoyancy.
The NB in my company name stands for Neutral Buoyancy, it’s a scuba diving term where you are neither bobbing up to the surface or sinking down, you are gliding, mid water, it’s the most enjoyable and efficient way to dive.
When you aren’t neutrally buoyant you can find yourself finning like crazy, using up a huge amount of energy and air, crashing into your buddy, the coral…. to put it mildly, you aren’t much fun to be around!
However, what does that really mean on a practical level?
I have floaty feet and am very buoyant so without the right weight distribution I can find myself diving upside down, using up huge amounts of energy fighting my own buoyancy. For others like my dive buddy Neil, if he used the same weights as me, he would be diving almost vertically. We are all unique and need to find our own balance, our own way to be neutrally buoyant.
Likewise, in life and business, you may find yourself going with somebody else’s flow, perhaps that of a guru, a coach, a mentor or a well-meaning friend. Even when you find your own stream, the current may pull you ahead too quickly, or the baggage you carry may sink you right down to the bottom.
What you need to develop is neutral buoyancy so that you naturally flow no matter what the tide or whose turbulence you’re drawn into.
When diving you need to make small, continuous adjustments to remain neutrally buoyant, and the same is true of flow state. It isn’t a fixed destination you arrive at once and stay in, it’s a dynamic condition that requires ongoing attention.
So what exactly is flow state and why does it matter so much?
Steven Kotler, one of the world’s leading researchers on human performance, describes it as:
“An optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.”
Why does it matter? A ten year study by McKinsey found that top executives are five times more productive when in flow, and that increasing flow by just 15-20% would almost double overall workplace productivity.
Think about that from your own perspective. How much more productive and satisfied would you be if you spent more time in flow?
The foundations: Ryan and Deci
The concept of intrinsic motivation that underpins flow state has its roots in the work of Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, whose self-determination theory identified three core conditions that underpin genuine engagement:
- Autonomy: the sense that you are acting in accordance with your own values and choices.
- Competence: the experience of genuine challenge and growth.
- Relatedness: a sense of connection to something larger than the immediate task.
When these conditions are present, engagement tends to follow naturally. When one or more are missing, even objectively good work can start to feel hollow, and that’s when the wading through treacle feeling begins to set in.
Csikszentmihalyi and the flow channel
Building on this foundation, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent decades researching optimal experience and gave us the concept of flow state as we know it today. He found that flow emerges when specific conditions are in place, and that in this state action and awareness merge, our sense of self vanishes, time distorts and performance goes through the roof.
He called this the autotelic experience, from the Greek autos meaning self and telos meaning goal, an activity that carries its own reward. The doing is the point, not merely what it leads to.
His research identified the conditions that need to be in place for flow to emerge:
- Clear goals
- Immediate feedback
- A balance of challenge and skill
- A sense of personal control
- Total concentration on the task
- The merging of action and awareness
- Loss of self-consciousness
- The transformation of time
Have you ever been so absorbed in something that you lost track of time completely? Or finished a piece of work and wondered where the last few hours went? Perhaps you’ve had moments where everything just clicked, where the thinking felt effortless and the results surprised even you.
Those are the hallmarks of flow state, and the chances are you’ve experienced it at some point.
Finding your own flow channel
Csikszentmihalyi found that flow occurs in the channel between boredom and anxiety, where the challenge is real enough to require full engagement but not so great as to overwhelm. He called this the flow channel, the sweet spot where challenge and skill are in balance and where we do our best and most satisfying work.
For many of us, particularly those who have spent years in corporate environments, the measures of success have been largely external. The promotion, the salary, the title, the approval of those around us. These aren’t wrong things to want, but when they become the primary driver, the work itself can gradually lose its intrinsic reward. We deliver, we achieve, we move to the next goal, and somewhere along the way the enjoyment quietly disappears.
Whilst remaining in the flow channel is the ideal for both performance and personal satisfaction, what that requires changes over time. For someone who has mastered their skills and performed at a high level for many years, the challenge looks very different to someone just starting out in a new role or business.
A useful place to start
If you are feeling out of flow, the solution isn’t to work harder or push on regardless. The first step is simply to notice what energises you during your working week and what exacerbates that feeling. That pattern is rarely random, and it’s often the clearest signal available about where your flow actually lives.
In the next article we’ll look at what flow actually does to you, the neuroscience behind it and what takes us out of it.
If you’re curious about where you sit right now, the quiz below takes about three minutes and offers a useful starting point.
👉 https://violetportal.blog/archetypes-quiz/?quiz=louise-mosley