High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 618: How to Get into Flow

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Finding your flow zone starts with your mind and channeling your focus to the present moment. Your mind is a muscle; it takes daily practice to master it. Flow is like a muscle—the more you train and experience flow. In this episode, Dr. Kamphoff shares the 3 barriers that get in the way of flow for you. Power Phrase this Week: “My mind is like a muscle. I train my mind to increase my chances of finding flow.” Quote of the Week: “Flow is being completely involved in the activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi  

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Time to check in with Cinder Kampoff today, and we're talking about how to get into flow. We've talked about flow before, but Cinder, usually you start us off with a quote. I like this quote by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and he said, flow is being completely absorbed in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away and time

flies. All right. So tell us what we're going to be talking about today. Well, I want people to think about, you know, what do you enjoy doing so much that you forget about anything else, right? Your time flies, you know, you don't have any worries. You know, chances are that what you're doing, you're experiencing flow, a term that was coined by a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and he wrote a best-selling book called Flow. And he found, Lisa, that in years of studying creativity and performance, including like Nobel Prize winners,

that the secret to optimal performance and success is our ability to reach our flow state, which is this ultimate optimal experience where we're completely absorbed in the activities that we enjoy. And so tell us a little bit about what people say that they experience when they experience flow. They say it feels effortless. They say that we're using, you know, your skills to the fullest and you're so absorbed in the task that nothing else matters. And the research shows that when you experience flow, you're more likely to be satisfied with your work, you can maintain energy. And this just helps you grow your, you know,

your career. I this Saturday, I was in flow for about four hours, writing a new book on confidence. And I was so absorbed in it. It was so easy. And you know, it felt like effortless. And I felt like I made so much progress, just being in the flow state. Well, so we want to be there. We want to get there. What gets in the way of us experiencing flow? Well, I interviewed another leading researcher on flow named Dr. Sue Jackson on the podcast, episode 359. And he talked about three ways or we'll call these inhibitors of the flow experience, and he called them the three Fs. So that's what we're going to focus on today. Number one is focusing on the outcome, number two is forcing flow, and number three is focusing on yourself.

All right, so tell us a little bit more about how we can avoid those three Fs. Okay, sure. Let's start with focusing on the outcome. And when we focus on the outcome, we really take our attention off of the present moment and off of the process. So this weekend, it might have been me thinking about, you know, who's going to how many books I'm going to sell or who's going to read the book. Instead, I was focused more on the process and knowing that's going to help you experience flow. So think of something that you really want, but you know, you're not really sure how to get there. And so we want to be clear on the objective, but then really focused in on the process of getting to the goal. And,

you know, I think about Olympic athletes and elite athletes, they really know this best is if they're focusing on winning or scoring or getting, you know, first place, their performance declines. So we want to stay focused more on the process. And how about forcing flow and focusing on yourself? What do you mean there? When we force flow, we, you know, get further away from it because we're pressing and we're pushing instead of just letting it come naturally. So we want to trust ourselves. You know, flow isn't about turning on, you know, off a switch or on a switch and just saying you want to experience it. Instead, just move forward with ease. And then the last one, focusing on ourselves.

When we focus on ourselves, we forget the reason that we're doing the work, which is likely for someone else, which can lead to overthinking and feeling self-conscious when we're really focusing in our own head. So instead, just concentrate on the task. And, you know, we want to just avoid overthinking. So focusing on really what you're doing in the moment. So what's a recommendation that you have for us to experience flow more?

So think about what leads to flow for you. And think about a time where you're in the flow. What did it feel like for you and what led to that feeling? And you could just write down all the activities in your life where you experienced flow. You know, maybe it happens when you're preparing for a presentation or working on, you know, something in your business like marketing, or maybe it happens to you in sport. For example, I experienced flow most when I'm writing or speaking or working one-on-one with people. So what do those activities for you have in common? And why did those particular

activities lead to flow for you? Sounds like we're going to need a little notepad and a pencil or something for that. I like it. What's your final point for today? I would say finding your flow starts with your mind and channeling your mind and your focus to the present moment, focused on the process. And remember, your mind is like a muscle. It takes daily practice to master it. And so flow is like a muscle. The more you train it, the more you experience it. Cinder, what's the power phrase for this week? My mind is like a muscle. I train my mind to increase my chances of finding flow. All right. So if people want to read some of the things that you've written in the past

or listen to the podcast you referenced, where do we go and find you, best follow you? Absolutely. You can head over to Dr. Sindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A. And both of my books, Beyond Grit and Beyond Grit for Business, I talk about flow. So you can find those there.

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. Sindhra 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. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.