I don’t know if you have them on your March Madness bracket, but there’s a little known school called The University of Flow State.
They’re as elusive as they are effective, coming out of nowhere to surprise you and then vanishing seemingly without a trace.
What’s Flow State you ask?
good video when you have time to watch of a fighter describing his career setbacks and how he learned about the importance of getting into flow state
The concept is to get into a mode where you can simply execute effectively – pushing yourself but not focusing on perfection, only on success.
It’s much easier said than done.
Imagine a day where things just seem to go right. You feel productive. Something made you laugh. You had a good lunch. The lights all seem to be hitting green.
For me, that seems to happen about once per month, on average.
One day where it’s like “oh hell yes, everything’s coming up Milhouse!”
The rest of the month is a mix of the good with the bad, some bursts of excitement, some setbacks, that usual cycle of expectation and anxiety that’s easy to get caught on.
One thing I’ve learned recently is “flow state” isn’t necessarily a random state of mind or just a product of happenstance – it’s a practice.
The biggest reframing was that it isn’t something that just happens – it’s something that you do.
In the Rogan video, the fighter talks about the difference between pushing yourself hard vs working smart. Pushing yourself hard can get results, and you can achieve a lot, but without internally supporting yourself, you can set yourself up to be unable to bounce or build back from setbacks.
Working smart is making incremental improvements, taking in feedback from trusted sources, breaking down big actions into small movements and opportunities to succeed, and cultivating many examples of flow state.
I’ll give you an example:
Let’s say it’s a typical Monday. You’ve got emails, errands, stuff that was supposed to get done last week, stuff that needs to get done this week, and that doesn’t even count all the potential disasters that can happen along the way.
You push the hell out of yourself to get everything done today, exhausting your resources to the point where you slug through Tuesday and by the time Wednesday rolls around, the only thing that makes you smile is you’ve at least reached the halfway point of this godforsaken week.
In an alternate reality – you chunked out and took your time with tasks Monday, allowing yourself to get things done at a reasonable and measured pace so you could build yourself into a flow state. You took care of yourself, drank water, ate well, rested, and started Tuesday in a positive way, covering any remaining items at a similar pace and left yourself room to sort out any potential roadblocks along the way. Wednesday rolls around and you face the day with similar gusto, and you continue that good momentum throughout the week.
In the first example, you tried to force productivity at your own detriment. In the second, you treated your body like a tool to get what you needed done, tapping into flow state, and making time to support yourself and your goals.
Both took the same amount of time on paper, but one was sustainable. That was the one where you cultivated flow state.
It’s a mentality you can take to every aspect of life, giving yourself the ability to push through one more set, one more rep (both metaphorically and physically) and be happy that you did.
Crucially, you give yourself grace while giving yourself room to grow. Over time, this habit building affects not just your mood, or your outlook, but your trajectory.
When you look back at life, do you want a highlight reel of struggle? Or one of accomplishment?
