How to access Creative Flow?
There is a place of no time, no worries or pain within us. This might sound like a dream, but it is something possible to reach for all of us. We experience this feeling when we take a cup of coffee or read a great book while wearing comfy clothes. Or you might experience this feeling while doing passionate work while creating something you love. It might sound very woo-woo and talking about a perfect world, but it is real and something we can all access. This feeling is called flow. But what is flow?
Sometimes we struggle to feel inspired. We look at things from the perspective of ‘I don’t care.’ We go for what is easy and will benefit our lives in the short term. But by doing this, we could forget what matters in life. Doing our passion can sometimes look less like the outcome we had in mind but will lead us toward a better life. For example, You start writing because you want to become a screenwriter. Then life takes you in a whole different direction, and you become a famous children’s book author. When we follow our passion, life can become inspiring!
- How do we get happier?
- How do we engage in a more passionate life?
- How do we create and find our zone?
What is creative flow?
It’s “creating in the zone.” We experience a joy-based, alter-state of consciousness of total concentration, emotional detachment, mental clarity, and time dilation. While we let go of the conscious mind, changing our decisions to flawless execution and performance in our creation process.
It may sound sophisticated, but you do already experience this quite often. Every time you read a book or throw a basketball, we stop time for a second. At that moment, everything is possible.
But this happens more often in times of passion and joy. Sometimes we have the opposite effect when working, checking the clock every 5 seconds, only expecting it to go faster or finish the task quicker.
In our brain, we experience these thoughts and actions as connections that control our thoughts, actions, and feelings. The right feelings connect to create a specific sense of comfort. Indeed, a small challenge to our skills can trigger this.
If you are interested in this topic, Checkout our weekly podcast; the theme of this week is:
CREATIVE flow state! in The Peak passion Podcast Ep 2
Here we talk about the different stages to flow. How to access it, the artistic and scientific approach, and how it could improve your life and creation process. Making it a more manageable everyday process!
How to access creative flow?
To access creative flow, we have to create a joyful, rewarding environment with clear goals and possible expectations within our skillset. Working on a challenge that is not too easy or hard, doing something we love. After time and practice, we learn to act unconsciously with our implicit system.
Anyone can experience this fantastic feeling of flow. It’s just beautiful, like poetry to a romantic person. It dazzles our minds to keep going for more. For some extreme sports high-performance athletes, it’s what makes them jump out of a plane, conquer Everest, or surf on a tsunami wave. All because this feeling can be addictive. That’s why it gives us the power to push our boundaries, break records, or create an art masterpiece…
How to create flow?
We can create flow with a daily microflow environment. When we do something we enjoy, have a clear goal, a high level of personal concentration, and absorb the information of the specific topic, we get in the zone. The more we repeat the process, the easier it will get to be in the zone.
- There is a study that says that we can hack flow just making it 4% harder every time but still achievable in our mind
Like in a mass-production factory, the workers, after time, start making fewer mistakes and master the process. They access a microflow environment, and everyone works like an oiled machine or an orchestra that plays incredible melodies after they practice with concentration.
We can create a habit by improving our environment. Just linking or connecting things to existing patterns in your life, like doing squats while brushing your teeth, might get you in better shape. You can get inventive and add an extra skill to an activity you already do. This is called habit stacking, a handy technique for your everyday life.
Is Creative flow a skill?
Yes, creative flow can become one of your skills if everyone can access it through practice, mindset, and environment. We can all make it possible, so it can be called a skill. Some of the best performance artists, writers, athletes, and creatives share this performance skill.
A level of engagement in our interactions and passions drives us to move forward. When we learn to walk, maybe following our parents around the room, we have something that moves us forward. We need something that we are passionate about. Money or surface-level emotions are not always enough. If our task is slightly challenging or our goals get clear, we may find that we can access this state more easily.
- Think of ways to make it a habit
- Create a perfect environment
- Analyze your style and take notes to understand your process
- Let it all go & believe in you
How to master creative flow?
To overcome fear and access creative flow, we need to engage constantly and perform at a higher level. This while understanding that skills, goals, and beliefs interconnect to perform better every time. Repetition is the master of any skill, but with “flow,” we need a small challenge every time.
Mastering something or anything takes time. Every extreme sports athlete can access flow a lot quicker than an artist. The adrenaline in the actions that they perform in their craft helps them be in the zone faster and repeatedly. They do things that they have to trust their lives upon their efforts. They embrace their fears and act on intuition because their lives depend on it. Their practice, passion, and love interconnect to function, perform, and break world records every season.
I do not say we must put our life at risk to master the zone. Still, suppose we let our fear go. In that case, we trust our intuition and implicit system to take over. Maybe we could perform at our best, accessing this beautiful state and creating the masterpiece we want to show the world.
So believe, let go and keep practicing to master your creative flow…
