High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 359: How to Experience Flow More Often with Dr. Sue Jackson, Sport Psychologist, Flow Researcher & Author

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

Sue is a registered psychologist with a specialization in sport psychology, and is an expert in flow and its application to performance excellence. Sue has been involved in the psychology of flow since completing a PhD on flow state in elite athletes in the early 1990s. Sue’s work in flow has helped to make this optimal psychological state understandable and more accessible to all levels of performers, from weekend warriors to Olympic champions. Sue has extensively researched with her mentor and the founder of flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Sue has written the popular book on flow for athletes and coaches with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances. In addition, Sue has an extensive publication record on flow in sport, and has worked in academic positions in sport and exercise psychology for many years. Sue has developed a suite of Flow Scales, self-report instruments that have applicability across a diverse range of settings.   In addition to her work in the psychology field, Sue is a yoga and meditation teacher, and has undertaken training in a variety of psychological approaches that emphasize the importance of mindfulness. Mindfulness offers a great skill set for facilitating flow, and Sue provides consultation, coaching, and workshops in both mindfulness and Flow. Sue coaching and conducts consultative work with individuals and groups includes a focus on the following areas: developing present-centered awareness and attention, aligning life with identified values, reaching for performance excellence, and finding flow in life endeavors.   In this podcast, Sue and Cindra talk: · How improve your potential to experience flow · What lead her to her pioneering work in flow · Why finding an activity you enjoy is important to flow · The role of mindfulness in the flow state · What gets in your way of flow HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/suejackson HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong   Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. Welcome to episode 359 with Sue Jackson. This is your host, Dr. Sindhara Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you are here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. First, I want to start off today thanking you from the bottom of my heart. One of my goals in 2020 was to get the podcast to the top 100 podcasts in the U.S. And we did that last week. So I'm over here celebrating. And I want to thank you so much for all of your help

because we could not have done this without your help. With over a million downloads, I'm grateful that you're sharing this podcast with your friends and your colleagues, that you're posting on social media about the podcast, and that you are tuning in each week. I do these episodes each week for you. You notice there are no advertisements just here to serve and to help you grow. So thank you so much for helping us grow the podcast. So I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart again. I love these episodes when I grow as well as when you grow.

And today's episode was a growth episode for me. And I know if I'm learning, you are likely learning too. I heard a lot about Sue during my PhD work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her dissertation on flow was literally legendary. Her dissertation won two awards, the same award as my dissertation did, the NASP Sports Psychology Academy Award, but she also won the dissertation award

for the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. So I am literally interviewing a legend today. And what I most appreciated about our discussion was this idea of the challenge and skill balance and how you can modify that. So let me explain. Today's episode, we're talking about the flow state. Sue is a registered psychologist with a specialization in sports psychology and is an expert in flow and its application to sport excellence. She's been involved in the psychology of flow since completing her PhD on the flow states in elite athletes in the early 1990s. Sue's work in flow has helped to make optimal

psychological state understandable and more accessible to all levels of performers from weekend warriors to Olympic athletes. She has extensively researched with her mentor and the founder of Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Sue has written a popular book on Flow for athletes and coaches with Csikszentmihalyi called Flow in Sports, The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances. And I definitely recommend you grab the book. Sue has an extensive publication record on flow in sports and has worked in academic positions in sport and exercise psychology for many years. She's developed a suite of flow scales, which are self-report instruments that have applicability across diverse range of settings. In addition to her work in the psychology field, Sue is also a yoga

and meditation teacher. She believes that mindfulness offers a great skill set for facilitating flow. So here is what Sue and I talk about in this podcast interview. We talk about how to improve your potential to experience flow, what led her to this pioneering work in flow, why finding an activity you enjoy is essential to flow, the role of mindfulness in the flow state, and what gets in your way of experiencing flow. I can't wait to hear what you think about this. Definitely a mind-blowing interview today that I know you're going to get incredible value from.

Today's podcast rating and review comes from ABC, ABC, ABC, ABC. At least that's the name they left us. ABC says, as a recent certified mindset and performance coach, I'm constantly looking to expand my toolbox and learn from the best. My toolbox is overflowing from these podcasts. Cinder's enthusiasm is contagious and the guests that she brings on are the best in their fields. Definitely agree. Listening to Cinder's enthusiasm is contagious and the guests that she brings on are the best in their fields. Definitely agree. Listening to Cinder and her guests inspires me each week. Thank you so much ABC. I'm grateful for your rating and review and I would love to read yours next week. So wherever you're listening head over and leave us a rating and review and I'll make

sure to read it and hopefully read yours next week on the podcast. Now be sure to share this episode with a friend. Think about who would want to learn about flow and how to facilitate flow from the best of the best. You can copy and paste this link wherever you're listening or take a screenshot and share it with a friend. You could also post it on social media and tag Sue and I. We'd be forever grateful and we can't wait to connect with you.

You could also share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at cindracampoff and Sue at suejackson underscore flow. Without further ado, let's bring on the legendary Sue Jackson. Sue, welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I am so excited to talk with you and interview you. I've been really looking forward to this interview and I feel like I am speaking to a legend. I heard so much about your work and I've read your book, Flow in Sports, and I heard a lot about your work. We both got our PhD at the same place. So I cannot wait to talk with you today. How are you doing from Australia? Yeah, it's really lovely to talk with you, Sindhra. And so thank you very much for inviting

me onto your podcast, which is an amazing event that you've had going for several years now. So good on you for doing that. And yeah, so it's great to be able to make that connection and, and yes, the connection does go back to having shared PhD advisors at UNC Greensboro and the, the legendary Dan Gould and also the legendary Diane Gill. And so I think that you arrived maybe eight years after I left. And yeah, it was a great time being there and being a grad student, as you know, it's a great time to get immersed in knowledge

and learning, but also just in interacting with your fellow grad students and the professors and so on. So it was a great time. And I know we both loved living in North Carolina. So I can't wait to send this to Dan and Diane and say, look who I talked to. So I feel like... Hi, Dan. Hi, Diane. I feel like I am talking to a legend right now. You and we're going to talk about your work on flow and I can't wait to talk more about it. But just to start, Sue, tell us a little bit about your passion and what you're doing right now. Yeah, so I think that that's a really hard question. What is my passion?

Like, I think it's probably is challenge is, as you understand, the flow concept is a central concept to understanding flow. And I think challenge is something that I have throughout life sort of been, I don't know, just directing towards, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. But I find that it's through being exposed to challenges and then being open to challenges that we can then find new pathways that we might not have otherwise and um and then we learn more about ourselves through the process and and we may tap into that wonderful state of flow that i know we're going to

to be talking about yes i think i just on reflecting on that question, I think I've seen that in my life, both personally and professionally, an interest in challenge and in growth. So that mastery mindset idea. Well, just to start off the interview like that, Sue, I think about how some people might think to themselves, wow, challenges and embracing challenges and how they can help you grow and learn. That might be a new concept of people or a concept that they just struggle with. So I look forward to talking to you more about it. So kind of briefly tell us, I know you grew up in Australia. You came here to the U.S., got your master's at University of Illinois and then your PhD at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

And just tell us a little bit about after you finished your PhD, you know, tell us a little bit about your journey to do what you're doing now. I think the journey to actually end up at the University of Illinois and North Carolina Greensboro, they were important parts of what I'm doing now. When I learned about sports psychology, it was a burgeoning field, but here in Australia, there wasn't a lot in terms of training options. And so when I decided, oh, that sounds great, my love of sport, my love of understanding and analyzing things and people and behavior, put those two things together and so I decided yeah I'll go across and and do both my master's and then eventually my PhD in sports psychology at U of I and North Carolina Greensboro and both were fantastic experiences um very different

experiences um and so then I think I went into doing those degrees thinking I would like to work and help athletes and coaches. I'd already been doing that in my work as a physical education teacher and coach. And so I thought that's what I'd be doing. But then I got so immersed in the research side of things as a grad student, as you do, as you know, like you, you know, you just got to get like really into it. And I really enjoyed it. And I enjoyed what I was studying, which was this concept of flow and motivation. And so then I had a bit of a crossroads, probably had many of those throughout life as everyone does. But at the end, towards the end of my PhD, I got offered a job back in Australia at a university to do an academic you know start on that academic journey and excuse me it's winter here and I don't have COVID in fact we

don't even have active cases in our state at the moment touch wood but I have a bit of a cough so excuse me but I had the option to come back to Australia which I wanted to do and do an academic, embark on that academic journey and continue my studies or to do an internship at the USAC and to go down that pathway of being able to like immerse myself in high performance and working directly with athletes and coaches. And it was a real tough one. And obviously, if I'd chosen the other path, it would have been a very different journey that I would have gone down on. And I think the deciding factor was that

I wanted to come back to Australia. And so that that won out. And so then I ended up being in the academic setting for many years. So from 93 to 2007, I started to go part-time in that role when I had my two sons who are now almost 22 and just 20. And so I decided I wanted to be part-time during that part of my journey. And then I was realizing that part-time academic work was just pretty hard to sustain, particularly in the Australian university system, wasn't really catered for or supported at that time. So then I started to gravitate back more towards working directly with people. And I guess to cut back to where I am right now is that's what I'm doing is I still have an involvement in research and a curiosity and a love for research, but I'm not

connected in with an academic program. And I am working as a psychologist, working with high performance and working with people that are struggling and working with, you know, the whole continuum. And so that's been, I don't think I really anticipated that. That's just the way, the way things are at the moment. And that's been, again, a lot of learning for me to be, to be doing the role that I am right now. Yeah, absolutely. So what a cool, interesting journey. And what I'd love to hear about is what made you decide to study this idea of flow?

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, that for me was just an eye-opening experience to learn at the time. So that was when I was at University of Illinois, which was 1986 to 88. And Glyn Roberts was my master's advisor. And I really enjoyed that opportunity to learn from Glyn. And he certainly extended me intellectually and really encouraged me to to think about what was my passion what did I want to study what was I really interested in and it was definitely within the area he was working in which was achievement motivation and I was so

fortunate at that time when I was at the University of Illinois to to learn fromlynn, Marty Mayer, Carol Dweck was at the U of I at that time, and Carol Ames, and then John Nichols, who worked very much in the achievement motivation space until his untimely death. All of these people were contributing to my understanding and that it was just an amazing experience to learn about what motivates us and how to understand it through the lens of achievement motivation theory and how perception of ability really matters and how, whether we have a fixed or growth mindset matters. So that's what I was really interested in. And then I read Csikszentmihalyi's first book on flow, which is called Beyond Boredom

and Anxiety. And I just happened to have it here. This is the book that I read. And I read that when I was still working out what I was going to do for my graduate thesis. And in that book, I was reading about the best experiences I'd had as an athlete that I before having read the book didn't have a language for it I didn't have like I knew that there were these times that really stood out for me and that were fun and that were high performance times and and I just nobody had talked about them and and certainly there was not I wasn't even familiar with the term flow until I read the book. And then I guess I just, once I read the book, I'm like, this is it. You know, this, and in the book, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety,

which is, as I said, Csikszentmihalyi's first book on flow. He has studies with people in a number of different areas. He's also signed my book, which is really lovely. I could imagine. I'm just looking through, but I just want to get. So he looks at flow in chess, in rock climbing, in dancing, and in surgery. And so those are pretty diverse activities.

And yet the experience was very consistent. So whether the person was playing chess or they're a surgeon performing an important operation this experience of being fully engaged in a task was quite a consistent experience is what chicks at me high found so my interest was then tapping into well in sport is that something that athletes experience and and is it important to them and in what ways and so on so that's how I got interested in it that's wonderful and you know yours your dissertation award-winning dissertation that really studied how flow is applied in sport or how it manifests in sport and I love that if I got this right, you just had coffee with Czech Psych Mihaj. And if people don't know who he is, he's like the flow master, right? He coined the

term. And I think about how awesome that was that you just met him and had coffee with him. And then you partnered up to write a book called Flow in Sport. So tell us a little bit about how that actually happened. Yeah. Well, when I read Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, I noted that he was at the University of Chicago and I was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is three hours south. And so I thought, oh, well, he's in the same state. I wonder if I could contact him. And I think it was maybe an email or a phone call to begin with. I'm not sure, but I was just reaching out to ask him, you know, do you think it would be worth me looking at flow in my research and in

athletes and, you know, and, and is that, have you got any ideas or suggestions on that? And, you know, as, as grad students do and anyway I was just very fortunate to have Csikszentmihalyi or Mike so his name is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Hungarian born and in America he decided that Mike was a lot easier to pronounce than Mihaly so Mike very gracious in his time and so I was able to meet with him on a few different occasions. And I included an aspect of flow in my master's and then I went on and I included, well, flow became my PhD dissertation. And the reason that it did, the reason that flow became my focus.

One of the big reasons I think was in my, when I was at U of I and I was doing my research with those athletes, Div 1 athletes at U of I across a number of sports and looking at motivation and performance, I decided to interview a subsample. So while it was a quantitative self-report study, I decided that I also was going to interview a small subsample. And in that interview, I was going to start asking them about flow just to see what I'd find. And that became, for me, the most powerful part of the whole research process. Actually sitting in this

little tiny grad office, doing an interview with these athletes and just being blown away by how important flow was to them. And they too generally didn't have a language for it, but it was their driving force in many, many ways. And it was, it was, and then the curious thing was that I'd get up, we'd finish the interview, I'd get up to leave and I'd have several of them thank me for asking them about their experience, rather than their performance. Oh, wow. And saying things like, everyone always asks me about my performance, you know, how did you go? You know, what was the result? What, you know, what happened? And, and yet here was I asking him about, well, what's your experience like when you're performing? And I realized that that was a really valuable area to tap into. So that then became my PhD is to look at that in more in depth. Wonderful. So just in case people,

right, I think the word flow and zone, maybe people might call it, right. I think it's a, it's in our language. We use it a lot, but I think we should define exactly what it means as we talk more about, okay, how do we more consistently experience flow? And so I heard you say being fully immersed in the task. How would you describe what flow is for those people who are listening? Yeah, it's being totally engaged in a task and words like immersion, absorption are useful words. And that total task engagement leads to a somewhat different state of awareness or consciousness than what our normal state of awareness or consciousness is. And it's a heightened state of awareness so that we are

much more in tune with what we're doing. We're much more aware of the relationship between ourselves and the performance. So if we're an athlete with the equipment that we might be using or the surfaces on which we're performing or the teammates, there's just much more of an intuitive connection happening there because of the total task engagement. So that's the thing that then allows you to experience a heightened state of awareness that then is often associated with your best levels of performance. And as I learned just as importantly with your most enjoyable experiences, as in the things that make you do what you do and that you remember as, as the important aspects of your time in that activity.

So Sue, do you think that you just mentioned that, you know, it's often related to high performance or peak performance of we're performing at our best. Can we also experience flow when we aren't necessarily performing at our best? Yeah. I mean, I think that, I don't think you're going to perform poorly when you're in flow. However, you can perform, you can be doing something that's not even a performance and be in flow. Like you can be reading a book and

Csikszentmihalyi, one of his books is actually on finding flow in everyday life. So I think it's called the psychology of engagement with everyday life. And that was a 1997 publication. And, and that was a summation of his research, looking at people through the research lens that he did, the experience sampling method, looking at people living their lives and how flow might appear in their lives. So flow's not just reserved for high performance. It's more

an experience that we can tap into and that if we are performing, it's likely to enhance our performance. And if we're not performing, it's likely to enhance our experience. And so it's, yeah, it's a really valuable state to understand. Yeah. One of the things I wanted to talk more about with you is this idea of the challenge and skill balance. And so tell us a bit about this concept, how it relates to flow and how would you describe, you know, this challenge and skill relationship? So operationally, Chixamihai has defined flow as a balance between challenges and skills where both are being extended for the individual. So you're stepping out of your comfort zone with a level of skill that will enable you to do so effectively. And so both challenge and skill are relevant to the experience of flow.

And it's thought that when you've got the challenges slightly extending the skills, that's going to be most conducive to a flow experience. And we had a little discussion before we went on to the interview about, you know, what might that ratio be? And I think that it's probably an individual variance factor there as to what is the size of that gap between the difference between challenges and skills. But I think that just that sense that you're going to move beyond wanting to be fully in control of a situation, which is a state that, you know, in an achievement situation, we often want to gravitate towards. We want to feel in control of a situation, which is a state that, you know, in an achievement situation, we often want to gravitate towards, we want to feel in control. It's being able to step out of

that a little bit and to, at the same time, trust your skills will be able to allow you to perform at that next level. Right. Absolutely. And so we were talking to catch people up on our conversation. We were talking about the book, The Rise of the Superman and by Stephen Kotler. And we were talking about in this book, I was asking Sue about it before we hit record. And Stephen talks about how to experience flow, what you're doing should be 4% greater than your skill level in order to keep your attention and release dopamine. And so he suggests that when we move beyond the 4% that we can become over challenged. And we were just talking about that it may or may not be 4%, but you're kind of saying, Sue, that it's individualized. Can you kind of describe that a little bit more? And I think really the

point is, is that the challenge should equal the skill. Like, so I think about if I was playing Michael Jordan in basketball, like neither of us would get in the flow, right? Because I don't know. I think Michael Jordan can probably get into flow pretty much anytime. What did you say? I think Michael Jordan can get into flow pretty much on demand. I think that's one of the things that separates him or separated him as a, as a player. He is very much a great example of, of someone that could just flick a switch and, and, and go into,

you know, an optimal state. And most of us don't have that switch to flick, unfortunately. Do you think it's something we can develop? Yeah, we can certainly get better at it, but I think that Michael Jordan is a rare exception and he's not the only one, of course. There are other people that are outstanding performers as well. And right now, that was my cat.

That's awesome. Hello, Layla. when she feels like she's alone she gets all upset and she cries so she's okay now sorry so I think that to get back to your question we can all improve our potential to experience flow we can can train for it. It's not something that most of us, in my opinion, and maybe this is me putting limitations on it, but I don't think most of us will just be able to flick a switch and get into flow. But I think that, I suppose the example of Michael Jordan shows that there's that potential for us as human beings to be able to do it. And certainly there are other examples of, you know, outstanding performers who probably have got that level of

control. And for Michael Jordan, I think it was very much a motivation factor as well that was so strong, you know, having watched his documentary recently. Yeah, that was a great insight into the mind of a high performer. Yeah, I did as well. And when I watched it, I thought about how he found motivation in everything. And sometimes he would even make up stories. Exactly. Motivation, right? And he was able to kind of what you said, flip that switch really quickly. So I like what you said, Sue, is like improve our potential to experience flow. Yeah. And so I think, you know, getting back to the, what's that ratio of the challenge skill balance, you know, for someone like Michael Jordan, it was probably he wanted that ratio to be quite large because his skill set was so high.

And as you said, like he'd want to find ways to motivate himself and whatever it took to motivate himself just so that that challenge would be upped for him. And so I think it's about having a good self-awareness. And this is where mindfulness is for me you know the pathway to to learn to get better to tap into your potential to experience flow so having an awareness of what your skill set is in the task situation that that you are wanting to experience flow in and that you're wanting to perform well in and understanding what the challenges are so being clear on the challenges being clear on your skills and then recognizing that both of those are modifiable. We can modify challenges up and down.

We can always build our skills. We generally, we don't want to downgrade our skills unless, for example, Michael Jordan's playing syndrome in a one-on-one on basketball. And then perhaps, you know but um those sort of situations like mostly we are wanting to be constantly getting better i mean that's what motivation is it's to be learning it's to be developing it's to be getting to a higher skill set and for high performers that's that's that's what drives all high performers isn't it it's about okay can i get to that next step and then can i get to that next step and so

on and having said that i just like a caution that that i have learned through experience and through talking with athletes too is that if it's always the focus on the next step then you can also lose the joy of the moment and so you the journey is what's important and that's come through with my research with elite athletes and it's certainly something that Chix and Mihai would would strongly emphasize is that the performance is important however it's the experience that you have along the way that determines ultimately the quality of what that experience is like and how it's remembered so if you have a absolutely terrible experience in a high performer setting whatever that setting is whether it's the corporate world or the elite athlete world or performing arts,

you achieve amazing things, but you are absolutely unhappy. So you're constantly challenged and you can build your skills and so on. And so you can tap into flow and you may be gifted. And so you're more likely to get to really high levels. But if your experience along the way is horrible, then you've got to question that. And so I have learnt over the years of researching flow and sort of reflecting myself on my experiences that that journey is really important and that it's about being able to be in the experience

of what you are doing and to find a way within that experience to get immersed in it, to get yourself focused on the task, to find a challenge, skill balance in whatever you're doing. to experience positive qualities and to, if you can't be experiencing positive qualities, to see what can you do, what's within your control to enable you to find some level of positive qualities. You know, we're living in a time now where that's pretty demanding all around for everyone. So it is more of a challenge. But, yeah, I do recall that athletes, no matter what level they had attained, and that was including, you know, those who had attained the very top of their sport. And those flow experiences was what were motivating them to continue in what they were doing

equally, if not more so than what next level of achievement they could attain. And Sue, do you think that this intrinsic motivation, just enjoying what you're doing is that, I know that's one of the components of flow, but is that a prerequisite? Like meaning, can I not get in flow if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing? I think that it's not regarded as a prerequisite. It's actually regarded more as one of the outcome experiences of being in flow that then becomes a driver for you to seek out more flow is that you've, you tap into it, it is enjoyable. And then that then becomes a driver for you to seek out more flow is that you've you tap into it it is enjoyable and then that then becomes a motivator oh that was a really enjoyable experience

I would like to experience that again yes um so I think it's more once you've experienced flow that's then sets the stage for you to well if if you want to be motivated by it, like it's totally, everyone has a choice whether that matters to them or not. But I haven't come across anyone that's like, oh yeah, flow is great. And I don't care if I experience it anymore. Like it's flow is great. And I'd really like to experience it some more. So then, yeah, it's about how do we help people to do that? I think one of your messages that you just said is really powerful that we can modify our challenge and modify our skill. And what I heard you say is like that we can continue to improve our skill, but we can find this challenge and skill balance

more often. I'd love to learn more from your perspective on like, how do we actually do that? And I'm thinking about people that are listening who might be, you know, business leaders. How can I tap into that or coaches or athletes? So how do we develop the challenge skill balance? Yeah. How do we find it? How do we find it? Find it, develop it.

Yeah. Tell us a bit more about how we might modify that. Well, I think sport, and that might have been why Chicks of Mihai was interested in helping me develop my interest in looking at flow in sport. But sport by its very structure has inbuilt challenges. And probably in the corporate world world there's inbuilt challenges in terms of like levels of achievement and levels of attainment and so on and so when you've got something structured like sport or work the challenges they're they're generally evident and it's a matter of then developing the next precondition for flow which is clear goals so

then you need to set for yourself clear goals so the challenges are there then you define well which challenges are going to be relevant to you and then what skills do you bring to that and then in an ongoing process it's this it's not like oh I've found the challenge skill balance I'm here now you know it's like that's the starting point and then an activity by definition is like moves forward. Like it's not just a static thing. And so it's about continuing to find that challenge, skill balance and continuing to move forward. And that's where the other two preconditions for flow that Chikset Mihai and Gene Nakamura, his long-term colleague have identified from the dimensions of flow clear goals and unambiguous feedback so first of all having clear goals about um well what what for me is the challenge

what skills do i need to bring so that's like putting the it's kind of putting a process to the challenge skill balance is the clear goals and then taking on board feedback as you go so being able to receive feedback so having you need to have a situation where there's feedback about your performance and then being able to take that on board in a way that will then allow you to continue to work in a place where that balance is moving forward excellent so sue earlier you said like we can improve our potential to experience flow. And that's what I want to talk about next is like, how do we, and we've talked about a little

bit about that, but let's talk about it more in depth. It's like, how do we experience this more often? Because honestly, I'd love to experience it multiple times in one day. I want to experience it more often as I know the people who are listening do as well. So what would you say is one of the main ways that we can improve our potential to experience flow? Yeah. So I think find an activity that you enjoy is a good starting point because you're more likely to be able to tap into flow in that activity. So for you, Sindra, what one activity do you find flow in like most of all, or you know that it's more likely to occur in? What for you would that be? I would say two that come to my mind right away,

like running for sure, particularly when I'm really fit and goes by a little bit quicker and then writing I really like to write and so sometimes I can write for a couple hours and I'm like whoa what just happened at a time yeah like very very similar like definitely for me writing and reading and and then doing different sports and so I think if you can tap into to start particularly if you're wanting to cultivate your understanding of flow and your experience of flow is start with an activity that you're already able to immerse yourself into so it's not like it's really hard for you to concentrate because we've already discussed how the defining feature of flow is being totally engaged in the task so you want to choose a task where that's going

to be facilitated for you. And then once you've got the ability to experience flow in that activity, then you're learning about what does it take from you internally and what in your external environment does it take for you to be able to experience flow and you can apply that to other activities. So I think that's probably a good starting point. And then in terms of one's internal world, I think learning to understand that we can be in the present moment and that we have that part of being a human being

is having an awareness of our experience. And another part of being a human being is that we have a thinking mind. And it's the thinking mind that we tend to get emphasized and particularly, you know, going through that academic life. You know, it's that thinking mind that's really important and for school kids and for university students. And then if you're going into a job, you know, it's about learning the skills, getting the information. And so it's always emphasized about our thinking but as we both know our thinking isn't always helpful or accurate and there's this other part of being a human which is about being able to tap in to the information our senses are giving us and so we're talking now about this whole realm of mindfulness. And so being able to develop the awareness of where you are, like where you are in terms of your focus of attention is the first point. And then being able to train to bring your attention back to the present

because our minds will always wander away from the present. But we can definitely get better at becoming, noticing when we're not in the present and bringing ourselves back to the present more quickly and then without judgment. So mindfulness for me is the key pathway to flow. Nice. That's really helpful to hear that perspective, that developing mindfulness is the way to tap in or a way or the main way to tap into the flow experience. So we've talked about on this podcast in the past about, you know, how do you be in the present more often, but what would you say is as people who are listening, who want to experience this more often, Sue, what would you say is maybe the way to start?

To start being in the present more often. Yeah. Practicing with a mindfulness, a very simple mindfulness practice like your breathing and following your breathing and developing the amount of time that you might start with one minute of just following the breathing and that's all you're going to pay attention to. And you'll notice in that one minute that you probably, your mind wandered and then, you know, you're starting off a new skill. And so then you'll gradually develop the challenge there in terms of what you pay attention to. And you might start that breathing practice lying down on the floor where there's no distractions and then ultimately you might be in a really chaotic sports moment in terms of you know a lot of things happening or you're in a very chaotic and high pressured performing situation in the corporate world and and you're still able to

notice your breathing and you're still able to connect with the present moment through that so yeah it's learning the skill and then being able to develop that skill and then to be able to apply it to the situations where you're going to most need it which is is in those those performing situations absolutely you can't just expect that oh okay yeah I once or twice. And so now I've got it. It's like, as anyone that is familiar with mindfulness and if you are already working in that space, it's a lifelong journey. Yes, that's helpful just to say that, that it's not something that you just practice once

and you can be mindful. So it is a lifelong journey. You know, what about those people who say, I just want to flip on a switch to get in flow? What would you say to that, Sue? Good luck. If you're Michael Jordan, then yep, you probably don't even need the luck. You know, we all know those people that are highly gifted and and and have that ability to flick flick on a switch or or um just move into a different zone but but for most of us it's it's um it's a pathway and it involves a dedication it involves first of all a motivation so you want to decide is it important for you because once you once you make something an intention then it's more likely to be in your awareness and to to be something that guides you

and and and also you become aware when you're not when you're moving away from that intention and and then yeah developing um skills in your in arena, whatever that is, and being open to feedback, taking on a mastery mindset or a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset. Because obviously, if you have a fixed mindset, like there's, you might achieve flow, but you're not going to continue to achieve flow because you can't ever improve your skills so you know by definition if you if you only have a certain level of skills and reached it it's there's not going to be a pathway to flow so it's very much about having an ability to to see failure as learning and and to be able to become resilient in that way to to to challenges or knockbacks if you want to call them that and and then i think um also what's important is well i've said having that intention for flow is is is important it's not what you want to be focused on while you're doing the activity

like if you're like it's kind of like it's no use if you're doing, if you're in a race and you say, your focus is on, you want to win. Like it's, and that you just keep coming back to that. I mean, most of the time that's not going to be helpful. And if you similarly go into that race and you're like, I want to be in flow. I want to be in flow. It's like, you're making yourself further and further away from flow because you're kind of trying to force something versus letting go of all of the things that are getting in the way of getting into flow. That's really, really powerful. And I'm so glad that you said that. That's going to be my next question. Like, should we have a goal of experiencing flow more often? And if we're so focused on, you know, getting in the flow, then that prohibits us from getting there because we're thinking more about the outcome instead of like being fully immersed in the present. Besides like, you know, thinking about getting in the flow

prohibits us from getting there. What other things in your opinion prohibits us from getting in the flow? Like I'm wondering if an outcome focus, like focusing on, you know, the score or if you're winning or you're losing, that would get in my way of really being immersed in the present. Yeah. And yeah, so definitely forcing it, focusing on outcomes, focusing on yourself. So there's a difference between focusing on the task, which involves yourself and focusing on yourself as something to evaluate. And so we, as humans, we get very much caught up in what's called self-consciousness. Worried about how are we presenting ourselves? How are we performing? Are we doing well enough? What's so-and-so going to think? What are they thinking of me right now?

I'm no good. So once you get caught into that self, self, self, then you're just so far away from anything positive, including flow, because you're not focused on the task. You're focused on yourself in a way that's just layered with judgments and evaluation. So one of the dimensions of flow that has been consistently found across different settings is a loss of self-consciousness. So you let go of that worry about yourself and about evaluation. So I think that's a real critical one and probably one of the more challenging ones. And it's when you do get that, I think that's what makes,

that's one of the things that makes flow so special is that you can just lose yourself in the activity and stop worrying about yourself for for that period of time yeah so that loss of self-consciousness that's that's like a critical one yeah so um one of the things that makes flow so special is being able to get totally absorbed in what you're doing and to forget about yourself for a little while and forget about your worries and forget about evaluation and performance. And that, that I think is, is really what sets flow apart is, is that ability to just become really so involved with what you're doing that nothing else matters. And, and yeah, so you're really, you're fully engaged and you're, you're living life fully at that moment? So I think about how flow is, how it's connected to failure or mistakes. And I think what you just said is really powerful, Sue,

that if we're beating ourselves up after making a mistake, right, then all of a sudden we don't have that loss of self-consciousness. We're thinking too much about the task at hand and thinking about ourselves. Tell us a bit more about how do you think the flow states connect to mistakes or failure? Well, I think I've been talking about how flow is connected in with mastery or growth mindset. And that was one of the things that I was looking at in my research, both as a grad student and subsequently was looking at relationships between the achievement motivation model that will define a mastery mindset and an outcome mindset and an experience

of flow. And definitely, you know, mastery wins every time, like having that growth mindset, being able to take on personal challenges and to define success by achieving a next personal challenge, whatever that is. And then you're already like into that place of you're aware of challenge and skills and you've defined challenges and skills in a way that you have control over. So your clear goals are about things that you have control over, which is your performance and the process of your performance versus all of those other things

that we can get caught up in that we don't have control over, like the weather, like the opposition, like the fact that we tripped when we didn't think we were going to fall and things like that, because there was something in the environment that made us trip.

So all of these things that we don't have control over there's no point making that our focus um our focus is okay so what what is my goal here what what is the what is the thing that i'm wanting to to develop and learn and achieve here and then getting the feedback about how you're how you're doing in relation to that because as you know like if you, how you're doing in relation to that. Cause as you know, like if you're, if you're doing something and you get not getting any feedback, you, you start to question so that the problem with not getting feedback as you go along is that, that mind, that questioning mind will go, well, how am I actually doing? And is this good enough? And why am I doing this?

And, and, and and so yeah the getting the feedback is important so that that's something the coach you know a coach or a mentor can can help with this is providing feedback to to help you and I guess that's why coaches and mentors are so important one reason is that they're able to provide feedback to you as you're on your journey it's really hard when when you you're doing it alone and when you are not able to provide feedback to you as you're on your journey. It's really hard when you're doing it alone and when you are not able to get feedback about how you're going. Absolutely. Well, Sue, I think I could talk to you for several hours about flow. I'm so grateful that you were here spending the time with us today. And I'm going to work to summarize today and then would love to

hear about how people can connect with you and any other final words that you have. So we defined flow as being fully immersed or engaged in the task at hand. And we talked about how many times when you experience flow, you're also experiencing a peak performance. And that it happens when there's this balance between the challenge and skill. But we can modify that, which I think is powerful just to consider. You talked about how mindfulness is the gateway or pathway to experience the flow and that we can improve our potential to experience flow, but it's really about, you know, I think the mindfulness part is powerful because it's about being engaged

in the present moment. And then I loved at the end when we were talking about like what gets in our way of experiencing flow with like forcing it or focusing on the outcomes or focusing on yourself, being self-conscious and really being free of judgment is really key. So Sue, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. I'm so grateful to talk with you and to pick your brain about the flow experience. So how could people reach out to you, connect with you as I know that they'll want to tell us where we can find you maybe on social media or the web? Yeah, well, first of all, thank you again. It was really enjoyable to chat with you. And I think you summarized where we went with this interview really well. And yeah, I just encourage people to be curious about flow and to know that the more flow experiences you build, you're building a library of special experiences that will define your life and and that um will make your life worth living

and uh so it's really worth the journey people can find me my my website is bodyandmindflow.com.au and that's i came up with that name many years ago and and i think it the reason that I did is that I'm very much interested in the connection between body and mind. And so that's, you can find out about what I do there at my website, also on Facebook under the same tagline, body and mind flow. Instagram is Sue Jackson flow. So Sue Jackson underscore flow, and very occasionally on Twitter, Dr. Sue Jackson. But I think if people wanted to learn more about what I do the website's a good place to start and then they can also contact me through there and so like if if anybody wanted to to engage in some consulting or coaching obviously with Zoom now and with online platforms you don't have to be in in sunny Queensland to to be able to connect

and so that's that's been one of the the beauties of um one of the few positives of this really challenging time we're living in is is that how technology can connect us and and so yeah it's possible to to connect with anyone anytime really and the book flow in sports that you mentioned so that was a publication that came out many years ago now it's 1999 and it came out right at the time my first son was born so there's like two achievements at the same time and so that was co-authored with chicks at me high and and that's like a nice practical book about what's flow, how do you achieve flow in some ways. You don't have to be an athlete to get something from that book. It's called Flow in Sports, but it's about how to tap into flow. And I was very fortunate to have Chicks

at Me High join me on that journey. So that was a real special opportunity for me. Absolutely. An incredible book. I've read it multiple times. It's in my office at the university or I would have had it to show you today, but incredible book. And Sue, I'm just so grateful that you spent the time helping us think about how we can experience flow more often. And I think what you said at the end was perfect, that it really allows us to be more fulfilled in our lives. And I think that's what we

are all seeking. So Sue, I'm grateful for the time with us today. It was lovely to speak with you. Thank you, Sundra. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes. And to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week.

So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.