Exploring The ‘Flow’ State & How To Tap Into It— For All Walks Of Life With The Primary Example Of Music
Have you ever been completely engrossed in any particular activity that you feel a sense of unity and oneness and losing yourself in it?
Have you, while doing that particular activity, been completely immersed in the moment(the NOW) & in the activity such that you’re in full flow and motion and totally in your element and yourself?
That’s something called the ‘flow’ state and it’s felt by people in all walks of life in certain instances, but it’s especially felt by musicians when it comes to their music.
As an upcoming musician myself, although I’ve never performed onstage for an audience while playing an instrument(but I do have experience playing live sets as a DJ), I’ve experienced this flow state many times when I’m recording songs, playing my guitar or piano, or singing or working on music on my laptop, when I’m completely into the music and feeling it.
Also read: What Is The Point Of Music?
I’ve also felt this ‘flow’ at certain instances while writing and while playing football(soccer).
It’s a particular state, explained as “An optimal state of mind, when we feel our best and perform our best”
Neuroscientists have discovered that when you’re in the ‘flow’ state the Neo-cortex amps up dramatically, enhancing & increasing learning speed and the prefrontal cortex temporarily shuts down, making us slightly lose our sense of our selves and a sense of time.
Renowned psychologist Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi coined this the ‘flow’ state.
This state makes us perform outstandingly and enhances creativity considerably. And it’s a state that musicians, athletes and yogis access more often than others, which we’ve come to expect as studies of this ‘flow’ state reveal.
For me, when I’m completely feeling a song and performing by feeling it, I perform significantly better and I’m totally ‘in the zone’.
This can happen to you too, whether you’re in full focus while working on an excel spreadsheet, or coding a program, or in a brainstorming meeting, or reading, or painting or drawing, or exercising; it’s totally subjective.
When you’re in the ‘flow’ state, you feel the activity and perform better and the more you feel it, the better you perform. This is why some performances by musicians move you emotionally, and are simply much better than others.
Being in the ‘flow’ state brings out the best in us and enhances our performance.
Finding The Flow State By Finding Your Flow Strategy
To find and tap in to this state of ‘flow’, you need to focus on what you’re doing on the ‘inside’ and not on the activity itself.
When you’re completely feeling it on the inside, the performance of the activity itself comes naturally and at you’re able to perform at your peak.
It’s different and relative from person to person which you can only discover and uncover yourself.
For renowned violinist and speaker Diane Allen, she found her flow state because of her shyness and a particular bad performance which made her reflect on how to bring her A-game to her performances while playing the violin.
She found her flow state was by ‘sharing’. ‘Sharing’ her music with the audience while performing was how she deliberately shifted to the ‘flow’ state on purpose. And further ‘unity’ is how she could shift into it with purpose.
For me, after recording a lot of covers over the course of the last few years, as I’ve improved on the guitar & piano, I can access my ‘flow’ state when I focus on ‘feeling’ the lyrics, and my instrument follows, which puts me in the zone and performing the take to my peak.
Although it is very subjective and different from person to person, getting closer to finding your ‘flow’ can perhaps be uncovered by these mindful processes.
Ask yourself:
- Where am I when I’m in my flow state the most?
- What am I doing on the outside and more importantly, what am I doing on the inside, when I feel this flow?’
- Why do I feel this flow? Why is it meaningful to me?
- How do I shift into the flow state on purpose and with purpose?
In her TED Talk, New York trained expert violinist and keynote speaker Diane Allen, who was the Concertmaster of the Central Oregon Symphony Orchestra, reveals how her performances and her life changed when she began to tap into her ‘flow’ state and how anybody can tap into it to perform at their peak by finding their flow strategy and accessing their ‘flow’ state.
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