Actionable Intelligence

Ideas are valuable, but talk without action is cheap, cheap, cheap. I’ve found good strategies for Finding FLOW that I’d like for you to consider as Actionable Intelligence—ideas that help you move from thinking about FLOW to practicing FLOW in every aspect of your flourishing life. Beyond what you’ll use to practice here, there are good print and web resources for building your FLOW repertoire, so I hope you’ll be inspired from this and stay on a vigorous search.

The state of FLOW comes naturally to us when we’re children. Imagine the face of a child completely fixated and engrossed in learning something new—walking, working a jigsaw puzzle, connecting a swinging bat to a ball. As you mature, you harness the power from your inner child and focus your conscientiousness and energy to understand more complicated systems and processes: learning the function of a human eye, the rules of traffic or the steps to balancing your checkbook. You still have the ability to harness that power and make your experience of life come alive.

In Routine Tasks

Seize the capacity to transform the routine into something that’s more meaningful and stimulating. Discover ordinary moments in your day during which you can practice Finding FLOW. In a similar way that working crossword puzzles builds your cognitive skills, using your attention and concentration in simple tasks helps you build FLOW skills. While you’re washing glassware at the sink, be aware of the warmth and texture of the dish cloth in your hand, the shape and smoothness of the glass, the movement of your fingers over every surface as you clean and rinse it thoroughly and place it gently down to dry. You’re adding value to the experience by demonstrating your conscientious attention to task and by esteeming yourself as you care for the material objects that make your life richer. In addition, you’re building the muscles required to focus your attention and fully live In the Moment.

At Work

It’s at work where people often experience the greatest amount of FLOW in their lives. The key is to seek out assignments that stimulate your intellectual interest and reasonably test your skills sets. When you’re bored or simply don’t care, you need to find more challenge at work. If you’re overly anxious, you need to find ways to gain more skill (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). A little anxiety is actually a good motivator; too much anxiety can overwhelm your best intentions.

The research on work and attitudes is often contradictory to common wisdom. People may believe that only those lucky workers who follow a calling are happy at work, like artists, teachers or neurosurgeons, but that’s simply not true. Interviews were conducted in a study involving about 30 members of a hospital cleaning crew, and some of the interviewees revealed that they “disliked cleaning, felt that it entailed low-level skills, and did the minimum amount of work required” (Elliott & McGregor, 2001). Other members of the crew revealed that they had transformed their job into something grander and more significant, stating that they felt their work improved the lives of the patients, nurses and visitors. They reported more social interaction with the patients and others, and they built in challenges into their workday, seeking ways to finish their best cleaning quickly and to add tasks outside their normal routine that benefited others.

How can you create more FLOW at work? One FLOW opportunity for workers with some computer literacy is to expand your skills in a program with which you’re somewhat familiar or learn some basic skills in a new one. Be mindful from the beginning of the lesson to its conclusion by engaging all of your senses, paying attention to your posture, the visual cues that help you follow the lesson from step to step, your encouraging self-talk and your growing sense of accomplishment as you reach a new level of mastery. See? You can love work, too!

At Play

Researchers have unearthed interesting information about our habits at play and our ability to experience FLOW. People actually identify more FLOW states from their work experiences than from their home life. If you’ve become bored or detached at home, find FLOW at play by shaking up your tired routines. Change your work shoes to walking shoes once you’re home and go for a brisk walk: breathe the fresh air, take in the sights and sounds, swing your arms as your heart rate ticks up, feel the heel-toe-heel-toe impact of your stride on the ground. Surely, you could add FLOW at play by signing up for T’ai Chi, golf lessons or a cooking class, but a brisk walk is virtually free and provides a wonderful opportunity to experience FLOW states and improve your health and lift your state of mind. Take off and be present!

In seeking more FLOW experiences, no one suggests you disappear into complete self-absorption and renounce the world in a constant state of FLOW. The healthiest of us continue to seek balance in all things. Finding FLOW simply means being open to experiencing life, work and play with more attention—to being fully alive until the day you die.

Good Luck and Good Fortune!