Remember the moments when we feel the sense of time vanish when we lose ourselves in the activity we really enjoy. 

Skiing down the slopes with powdery snow flying up on both sides, or surfing so swiftly and balanced feeling part of the waves, in the full unity with nature. Going to work and being completely immersed in the process of creativity, new exciting ideas, great invaluable experience and meeting fantastic people around. When you fully enjoy what you are doing, focusing on what is here right now, you are living in the flow. 

What is precisely this powerful state of “flow” and why is it so important for us? Also, how can we achieve it?

According to psychologist and researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Flow is a state of intense concentration — a state in which people feel completely absorbed by what they are doing at that moment. 

Interestingly, we generate the state of flow being involved in activities that require a great deal of energy and intense concentration – a game, a creative art, a sport or some challenging task at work. Surprisingly, it almost never occurs when we are engaged in passive relaxation activities. Such activities offer immediate pleasure like stuffing ourselves with chocolate in front of the TV. But only an increasing challenge level can bring us to the state of flow. Because we learn to focus. 

‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.’ – Aristotle

Why is it so significant to be in the state of flow? What happens to our mind when we are in that state?

When we go with the flow, we are fully focused on a concrete task without any distractions.

 We tend to think that multitasking is a highly beneficial skill in a working environment. We tend to truly believe that combing tasks will save us time and switching back and forth between tasks very quickly will benefit in the long run. 

However, it is scientifically proven that if we constantly ask our brain to switch back and forth between the tasks, we waste time, make more mistakes and remember less of what have been done. In reality, we just spend all our energy alternating between tasks instead of focusing on doing one of them properly. 

Remember the moments when we are writing an important e-mail, then our phone vibrates and we are already responding to the message, and then in a second we are already answering a chat in WhatsApp. Then we have already forgotten what the e-mail we were writing was about. It happens to all of us from time to time. 

“Sometimes I write better than I can” – Ernest Hemingway

What we can do is to start being aware of multitasking. It is about completing the daily tasks step by step, setting priorities. By doing this, we are learning to be in the flow, concentrating on a single task and doing it well. 

Find a challenge that you absolutely enjoy. Researcher Owen Schaffer of DePaul University encourages to find a difficult task, not too difficult, but slightly outside our comfort zone. When we are slightly pushing ourselves, adding a little something extra, something that takes us from our comfort zones, we are developing the skills, that have seemed impossible for years. 

‘Happiness is in the doing, not in the result.’

Happiness is in these small steps you are taking on the long way to your goal. These steps can be also called structured activities or rituals. When you ask yourself, if you have any rituals, you might  say – ‘Maybe’, ‘I am not sure’, ‘No’, ‘It’s difficult to answer’.  And it can be really difficult to answer, as in many cultures today life is so busy and changeable, that all structured planned activities are smashed by unexpected changes happening every day. 

Let us imagine for a moment that life is inherently ritualistic. In earlier times we were hunting, cooking, farming, exploring and raising families – these structured activities or rituals kept us busy throughout the day. Humans naturally followed the rituals, that gave us clear rules and objectives, helping to keep the day busy in a balanced way. Even if the value of rituals has been shifted in many cultures, rituals still remain an integral part of daily life and business practices in modern Japan. Above all, in the main Japanese religions – Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism – rituals are much more important than absolute rules. Why?

In Japan process, manners, and how you work on something mean a lot more than the final result.  This is especially essential while doing business in Japan. 

Having only a big goal in front of us, we may feel stressed or overwhelmed by its huge importance. Rituals help a lot, giving us substeps on our working path, making the whole process more clear and structured. It is important to approach a big goal by breaking it down into parts and reach them one by one. By doing this we start enjoying what we are doing, having a clear structure and attacking the big goal with small steps. And the positive outcome will come naturally. 

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso

While approaching a big goal, it is urgent to set clear objectives for each day. The study of Boston Consulting Group has revealed that the number one complaint at multinational corporations is the absence of clear team’s mission and objectives. It is easy to get lost in the obsessive planning, creating strategies without a clear objective. It looks like heading out to sea with a map but no destination. Much more important is to have a compass pointing out to a particular objective, rather than a map. 

Compass over maps

Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab, encourages to use ‘compass over maps’.

 “In an increasingly unpredictable world moving ever more quickly, a detailed map may lead you deep into the woods an unnecessary high cost. A good compass, though, will always take you where you need to go. It doesn’t mean that you should start your journey without any idea where you’re going. What it does mean is understanding that while the path to your goal may not be straight, you’ll finish faster and more efficiently than you would have if you had trudged along a preplanned route.’ 

Small steps reach Big results.

It is so important to ask ourselves every day: ‘What is my objective for today’s session?’, ‘What is my team’s mission?’, ‘How effective will I hold a meeting tomorrow?’, ‘How successful will the negotiations be?’ – All these small objectives ‘to get a clear picture of the day’s session’, ‘to identify the team’s mission’, ‘to organize the meeting’, ‘to hold negotiations successfully’ contribute to the main goal of the business project. 

By small steps we reach our state of flow – state of happiness, passion, creativity, inspiration, and positive energy. When we truly love what we are doing, we are doing it with Love – We are going with the Flow.