Many athletes describe the flow state as a shift of the mind; they state that they experience total calmness and a complete awareness of what is going on, often pointing to an experience complete silence and that time seems to slow down, as if everything shifts to slow motion.
What is it?
The term “flow” was identified and researched by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the early 1970’s. It is a state of mind where people are completely absorbed in the task at hand. This allows athletes to maximize potential because they are performing from neural pathways that have been strongly embedded into the subconscious mind (habit mind) through hours upon days of practice and repetition.
The challenge in performance is the distractions and imperfections of competition have the ability to detract focus. With every competitor trying to get the game on their terms and each competitor has a different idea of what that process looks like, it can create adversity and unexpected surprises i competition. When reality doesn’t meet expectation that’s where the stress comes into play.
Major component is the ability to perform in the present moment. Our body can only ever be present. But our mind has this uncanny ability to mentally time travel through memory of the past and anticipation of the future. In Professor Csikszentmihalyi’s research there are 8 requirements that must be met in order to reach a state which can happen simultaneously.
- Intense Focus on the task at hand: Against easier competition and much harder competition it can affect our focus and arousal levels. The challenge needs to sit around 4% outside of our comfort zone for us to enter into the zone. A big part of this being able to stay in the present moment – Concentrating fully on the task at hand without giving in to distractions or external interruptions.
- Loss of Self-Consciousness: This is where we are so absorbed in the present moment that we forget about ourselves and our worries.
- Setting Clear Goals: The goals have to be specific and challenging to help provide focus and direction during the flow experience.
- Immediate and Clear Feedback: This allows the athletes to gain confidence but also make real-time adjustments and improvement as needed.
- Effortless and Total Control: This is where skills and abilities align with the demands of the task.
- Merging of Action & Awareness: This is where we feel fully attuned / in sync with our actions and what is happening around us.
- Timelessness: Sometimes the performance can feel like it passed in a blur and sometimes it can feel like each play is moving so slow for you to read the play before it happens and make the correct decision. This complete engagement in the task at hand creates a time distortion.
- Thorough Enjoyment: The flow state is a highly enjoyable & pleasurable experience, that brings with it a sense of intrinsic motivation & satisfaction in performance.
The late great Kobe Bean Bryant describes the ‘flow state’ as “Everything just slows down. You have supreme confidence. You get into the zone and just try to stay there. You don’t think of your surroundings, everything becomes invisible. You’re kind of just locked in.”
Bruce Lee said “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into the bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow, or it can crash. Be water my friend.”
Stephen Curry the greatest shooter in history says “I believe in the zone, ‘because it’s the one time that everything kind of goes autopilot. There’s just synergy with everything that you’re trying to do, and even your intentions have been validated by the atmosphere around you, where it seems like everything else is going right at the same time. You kind of get lost in that moment.”
For me personally, I never really understood being in ‘flow’ until my best year at the Reserves Level in basketball. I felt like I experienced ‘the zone’ a lot & there’s a few thing I put in down to.
- I was working out 6 days a week at this point so I knew I was lodging enough reps to develop my skillset. 2. I knew that my skillset doesn’t change going into games and for me to perform at my best I had to think less and deeply trust that I would read and react to situations in the right way.
- There were times where I faced adversity and even times were I’d come back into the game from sitting on the bench and had to lock back into the ebb and flow of the game. So I always used my breath to re-centre myself and focused on being my best for the very first possession whether on offence or defence and I’ll play the next possession when it comes.
You see it in all types of professional sports, whether it is taking a penalty shot in soccer, shooting a free throw in basketball, or standing at the starting blocks before the 100m sprint. Whether athletes know it or not the breath connects the body to mind. We can slow our heart rate down with our breath and create clarity in our mind. We also increase our chances of getting into flow because focusing on the sensations of our breath bring us back to the present moment.
So, without further adieu, let’s give you a Mental Performance tip of the week so that you can open yourself up to experiencing more of flow and create more consistency in peak performance.
This one is a focus / re-focus strategy. You can use this anytime you feel anxious, or worried, or angry, or frustrated. Anytime you feel emotion that isn’t getting the best out of you.
Step 1. You’re going to take 3 deep breaths. The exhale is going to be longer than your inhale so we can slow everything down.
Step 2. Ask yourself “Am I calm?” It is impossible to feel any type of negative emotion and feel calm at the same time. If you’re not calm, take another deep breath and another until you get yourself to a state of calm.
Step 3: Direct your thought to just 1 controllable goal for the next possession or next shortened amount of time. In basketball we can break this time up by focusing on one offensive or defensive possession which is a maximum of 24 seconds. We want to break this time up to bring our attention to the details of the present moment. It is this focus to the here and now that allows us to maximize our skillset with 100% focus.
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