So I’ve been operating in a heavy heavy state of flow
recently and I figured I had to write about it. It’s 2:27AM on a Sunday
night/Monday morning and I can’t sleep so why the fuck not write this, as cold
as it is.
Most people don’t know what the flow state is and even a
lesser few have ever entered the flow state. So ima do a bit of multiple things
in this article, I’m going to educate on the flow state, tell you about my
experience and then explain how to tap into it. I already feel that I might at
some points here not make sense but there really is no way I’ll explain it in
simple terms so this is once again one of those articles I write that might not
be for everyone but fuck it bear with me.
1.
The
definition of ‘Flow”
The flow state is a paradigm one enters into before, during and
sometimes after he/she achieves his greatest form in a short-term or long term
sense. It’s a state in which a human being is operating at such high levels of
energy beyond his current levels where he feels as though he isn’t really
there. Think that limitless pill from the movie “Limitless” or the “Lucy”
movie. It’s when great challenges meet substantial capability and skill where
the challenge before you is so great but the skill set you have at your
disposal meets the challenge. Artists feel this in a momentary sense before
they perform, and even go as far as saying that something else takes over.
Athletes will run their best times at huge Olympic events that they’ve never
achieved in training.
They say luck is where preparation meets opportunity but where
great challenge, preparation, opportunity and skill all meet is the flow state.
I remember when I used to do athletics in high school or
when I used to break dance and perform, there was shit I couldn’t do at
training that I could when it became crunch time. I didn’t know that then but I
was in the flow state. It’s what allowed Goku to hit Super Saiyan when he
fought Frieza. He had to train at 100 times the earth’s gravity prior to that
but he needed to face Frieza where nothing else mattered to him on order for
him to achieve the flow state to tap into Super Saiyan mode. This is also why
they all achieved Super Saiyan at different times. It was when they let go of
what they thought mattered and literally focused all energy, chi or chakra at
one point and one reason in one moment.
There are two kinds
of flow that are dependent on the level of energy that one must channel based
on the challenge ahead:
Short-Term Flow State – The one where artists and athletes
feel when they perform but only tap into it during the moment but has to do
with a massive display of talents.
Long term Flow - This is one very few will experience because
it has to do with doing something greater than you and having to do it for a
greater mass of people that you might not even get to meet. This is when you
are led by a desire to affect and alter reality with a big “why” as the
foundational protocol. This can be both for evil or good. So people like Hitler
and Steve Jobs were both living in a constant state of flow respectively
regardless of their polar opposites” whys.”
How it works
As you can see from the diagram, the concept looks quite
daunting but lemme try explain it & make it cool.
As can be seen, on the Y-Axis, we have the level of
challenge and on the X-axis we have the level of skill. I want you to also add
time on the X-axis to make things more interesting and practical and also for
my need to improve on models haha!
Anyway, the level of challenge will always be fixed,
qualitative or an exogenous variable & that is based on your own choices or
the mission that’s before you. The skill set is the substitutive, qualitative
or endogenous variable that improves with effort and time and that you might or
might not be aware of.
So you choose your challenge either in a goal/dream sense
and then your level of skill will determine what paradigm you experience. And this
works for life too but let’s get to the cool part; the application of the model
in different characteristics.
- Apathy: Where there’s low challenge and Low skill (Think dead end repetitive jobs)
- Boredom: (Low Challenge and mediocre skills)
- Relaxation: (Low Challenge and high skills i.e. You know your shit)
- In Control: (Somewhat challenging with high skills i.e. You’re good and know your shit)
- Worry: (Somewhat challenging and low skills i.e. when you know you didn’t study hard for a test!!)
- Anxiety: (Challenging and low skills i.e. when you know you didn’t study hard for an exam and you need the marks haha!!)
- Arousal: (Very Challenging, mediocre skills i.e. when you have a deal to close that pushes you over the edge. Bankers and consultants will know this.)
- Now… When you have an extremely challenging goal and high skill set, YOU ENTER INTO THE FLOW STATE. (Super Saiyan)
In The flow state you feel:
- Like you’re not really here.
- You’re completely involved in what you’re doing. Somewhat obsessed too.
- You feel this massive amount of ecstasy every second.
- Like you’re inside and outside the door experiencing two different gravities.
- You’re absolutely in control of the outcome. You know and believe that nothing happens to you but happens because of you. You become both the problem and the solution in your life.
- You know the tasks that must be ticked off in a marginal sense in order to combine them into the ultimate vision.
- You lose your track of time; all your worries and things like eating and sleeping just don’t become priorities.
- There’s a sense of high intrinsic motivation that you can’t explain.
- You have a huge amount of calm and clarity regardless of how daunting what’s happening might seem.
- Most of all, you’re just happy, content and extremely grateful at everything. You might even shed a tear or 2 or 10 for no reason when you sit and think about things.
2.
My experience
Now that I think about it and have become aware of this I realize
that I was always pulled forward by big goals and ideas in my life and so the
challenge part of it was always high except when I was at school. I think I was
in the state of boredom and high relaxation. Nothing is worse than knowing that
something doesn’t challenge you. That’s not even me being arrogant about it,
those are the facts.
3 or 4 years ago I embarked on my biggest journey yet to
create something new. I set the vision/challenge at massively high and I’ve
been working on my skill set over the past 4 years improving everything I knew I
loved and was good at. I’m at a point now where I feel I have the extreme
skills set required that has been developing for years to meet the challenge. I’m
in the flow state.
I’m so cognizant of the moment and see that things like time
are all really relative concepts. If you measure time on a calendar and know
that it’s about all the days/and nights, sunrise and sunsets together. Does it
really exist? What if the planet wasn’t spinning around, would time exist? What
if you were floating in space, does time exist then? And how is time different on
other planets if we base everything on their distance and rotation around the
sun? That means it really doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is your
account of yourself, your “here-ness” and how you apparently “age” as the manifestation
of your soul being the body passes through this dimension. So if the only
account of time is our existence then that means the only reason for its existence
is so that everything doesn’t happen all at once taking the different gravities
into account. The planets all just places where virtual realities are then
created, each with their own characteristics. It’s all about the moment. The
future really doesn’t exist nor does things that you’ve never been aware of.
The future only exits when you experience it in a moment. It goes back to the question of; if a tree
falls in the forest and nobody sees or hears it, did it really fall? If so how
do we know? If not then how we do also know. It’s like me playing a song that
you hear but didn’t listen to because we were maybe in a conversation and so
you didn’t pay attention the song. When I tell you I played it, you disagree
with me because you didn’t hear it and we argue but I know I played it, and you
believe I didn’t play it. This means that reality is just a construct of what
we choose to tune into from our perspective like a radio frequency setting.
This also then affects happiness and sadness. They say if you change the way
you look at things, the things you look at change.
That’s where I am. I see that everything only exists because
I’ve chosen to make it real and tap into it. My flow state has me focused on
the goal alone, I'm on the ride and I’m no longer in control but I am control
itself. I’m not going with the flow; I am the flow itself and can direct it
towards anything because I’ve chosen to tap into it. Everything feels so
surreal and exciting regardless of the slaps one receives once in a while. To
me they are not real but I then choose to act and not to re-act because I am
the flow and don’t go with it.
To develop confidence one must be good at something and then
show it to people who appreciate it. And so I feel I’ve developed all my skills
over the years; the writing, the speaking, the thinking, the networks and the
execution to a point where I fell into the flow state when I realized that I’ve
risen to meet the challenge I’ve chosen. In this state I’m in equilibrium, with
not only myself but also my function and purpose. I don’t waste my time being
around people that don’t appreciate me or what I want to do because I’ll fall
out of flow. I’m in whole sync and I’ve tapped into my true energy with an
infinite amount of creativity at my disposal. I know that to a lot people they’ll
say I’ve changed but I then guess it is what it is. But my fucking goodness is
it godly!!! Wow!
3.
How
to tap into the flow state
Tapping into the flow state from a concept point of view is relatively
easy. You have to choose a challenge that excites you, that’s bigger than you
and one that forces you to grow. People will talk about looking for jobs that
give them a challenge and they didn’t know this is actually what they were
trying to do. The destination you choose you must also love because that’s the
only way you’re going to stick with it over the time to develop the skill
required to meet the challenge.
Then you have to be aware of where you are. If you’re in the
state of arousal, you can tap into flow by increasing your skill set. If you’re
in a state of control, you can tap into flow by increasing the challenge. It’s
theoretically easy but I know the practical part of it is daunting but now that
you’re aware of it you can be proactive. In flow, nothing else matters, not
even money. Money will always be the result of the result. But the magic
happens when you step out of your comfort zone and tap into the flow state. That’s
what everyone has been saying about the comfort zone. Cool shit hey?!!! Haha
That is the Flow State people… BOOOOM!!!
Lohocla coming soon... #August2015
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who
you were meant to be in the first place.”
IG and Twitter: @Lui_Innovator
Wale – “The Glass Egg”
Drake - "Pound Cake"
Frank Ocean – “Swim Good”
Drake – “Fireworks”
