Flow

Focusing on the object-level instead of on your meta-level thoughts, a constant theme of this book, is another way to sustain what you have learned. You can create the circumstances that make this possible. It means becoming less encumbered by feelings of insecurity, pride , and self-defense, and more likely to experience the joys of being lost operating in the ˜˜real world.

We have already talked a bit about the work of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He speaks of ˜˜psychic entropy, the tendency of consciousness to disintegrate. He also talks about the opposite of this disintegration. He refers to ˜˜optimal experience or what could be called true human happiness. He calls it ˜˜flow. If you get immersed in some activity, such as playing golf, building a shelf, delivering a presentation, creating a spreadsheetthen you may well transcend normal existence for a while by, ironically, getting down to earth.

Csikszentmihalyis concept of flow is very applicable to our jobs. The main conditions required for the experience are that we must have a goal, be challenged, be concentrating on what we are doing, and we must have some of the skills called for in order to achieve the goal. If we are attempting to do something that is too far above our current skill set, then we are not likely to achieve the desired psychological experience. Alternately, if what we are trying to do is quite easy for us, then our mind wanders off our work because we dont really need to concentrate.

But when it works, the effect is profound. First, chatter stops. There is no longer a voice going on in your head that is busy judging , thinking about other things, experiencing a sense of self. There is no ego. There is only the thing being attended to. It is an experience of total immersion.

Action and awareness are one. When its over, and you look back, you do realize that it was very pleasurable.

In fact, if you stop in your head to look at whether you are having fun, the actual state of transcendence disappears for about the period of time of the reflection. Its that same paradox again. Self intrudes. When it looks for happiness, it is cut off from it. There is no room for ego in happiness. There is only room for being. Is it easy to have this experience? Absolutely! You undoubtedly have already experienced it in your life. In truth, most people I speak to about it have it much more in their private life than they do at work. Yesterday a woman told me she experiences it when she plays tennis. A man recently told me it occurs when he is working on the guts of his race car. Another fellow last week told me he falls into this frame of mind when he works to clean his apartment more quickly than he did the last time.

Sometimes I find myself in such a transcended state while I am coaching someone. I lose myself . I listen carefully , ask questions, make comments, move the dialogue to some next , seemingly healthy place. At other times, I have to admit, I am more preoccupied with my own ˜˜stuff. The quality of my work probably goes down a bit, but I dont think it is apparent to the client. Only I know when Im not operating in harmony with the room.

The real moral of the story here is that when we have labeled our problematic patterns, when we know more about what triggers us, and when we have embraced the emotions that we have been resisting most of our lives, then we are much more able to manage our meta-level thoughts. We can experience life without intrusive chatter. We can find joy. There is joy in doing. It is not in achieving. It is in what any living creature does. It lives.