3 Modes of Purposeful Living

Soul Gym
Soul Gym
Sep 1, 2018 · 3 min read

There are 3 purposeful ways of going through each day. See how each of these ways applies to your own life:

1. Productive Flow

The first mode, Productive Flow, is when you lose your sense of self, while engaged in an activity that feels purposeful to you.

It is either personally productive (a project at work, or chores at home), or contributive to others (helping a colleague at work, or a family member at home.)

It’s not always pleasurable.

Being engaged in a creative endeavor or solving problems are often not “easy.” But they’re purposeful.

It’s like when you’re exercising — it doesn’t always feel good to the body, but your conscience feels good. You know that the stress is helping you stretch in the right direction.

High performers try to achieve the Productive Flow state as often as possible… the best musicians, athletes, successful entrepreneurs.

You have also experienced many moments of Productive Flow in your life.

Starting today, take notice of when such moments occur. This will help you naturally achieve this state more often.

2. Healthy Recovery

The second mode is Healthy Recovery, sometimes called Self-Care.

This is any activity that truly renews your energy, so that you can once again activate your Productive Flow.

Healthy recovery is sometimes a low-energy activity, such as meditation, taking a nap, gentle yoga, or listening to music.

However, it can also be energetic, like exercise or playing with friends.

Even some activities that have addictive potential can be considered healthy recovery — when done in moderation.

Video games, for example, can be a lot of fun, if you set a timer and just play for a short time, without getting sucked in for too long.

The key is to be aware of how it recovers your energy and happiness, so that you can enter Productive Flow again.

With practice, you can even healthily recover in a minute or two, by just relaxing your shoulders and breathing deeply, perhaps doing a quick stretch, and taking a moment to envision the next moments of Productive Flow.

3. Mindful Transitions

Become aware of the “in between” times, between Productive Flow and Healthy Recovery.

Mindful Transitions is the boundary between these two.

It’s not technically a “mode” of living, but it is very important to be aware of these moments of transition, because it gives you the opportunity to connect again with what is purposeful for you in this moment: is it better now to work, or rest, or play?

During productive flow, and healthy recovery, you are usually not aware of yourself. You’ve lost your sense of self because you’re engaged in the work, or in the rest, or play.

When you become conscious of yourself again, that is the moment where Mindful Transition can take place.

In any conscious moment, when you’ve snapped out of flow, take a breath and ask yourself whether you are able to continue working in flow, or if it’s better to transition into a healthy recovery.

If you don’t do this, you can overextend yourself and burnout, which will damage your ability to be productive.

Before you get into Recovery mode — when you are in a mindful transition from Flow to Recovery — decide how much time it is wise to be in Recovery, so that you don’t fall into inertia by staying too long.

A purposeful life is being in Productive Flow as much as possible, and then, Healthy Recovery to rejuvenate yourself.

A helpful exercise is to write down what activities in your life are Productive Flow vs. Healthy Recovery.

Productive Flow:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Healthy Recovery:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

You may want to take a few minutes now to brainstorm these, so that you can become more aware of how you spend your time.

May you live more and more into Productive Flow and Healthy Recovery.

 by the author.

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