Have you ever experienced that state of mind when you are doing something so engaging that you forget to pee and skip lunch? Turns out it has a name.
Laurie Santos at Yale calls it “flow”. Andrew Huberman (#hubermanlab) calls it “tunnel”. Others call it “being in the zone”.
It is the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment.
Based on my personal experience, this state is more addictive than sugar. Mainly, because it gives you the feeling of accomplishment. Today was a good day. I got to experience it twice: when writing and then when boxing.
I realized recently that I’m so addicted to it that if I don’t experience it for some time, I subconsciously start changing and re-adapting my life, without even realizing it, so I can be challenged and start “flowing” again. In my life this manifests itself in looking for another job or picking up a new hobby.
I have also realized that ideally we should all have the right to experience this at work, whatever our job is. And if looking back at the last year of your daily work life you realize that you’ve never been able to reach that state – you’re not in the right place.
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” – says a person with an unpronounceable last name (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). He must be from the Czech Republic.
Let’s get flowing!!!