Flow Like Water. Flow Like The Breeze. Let Flow Take Over.

You know what it’s like right? Being in deep flow where you forget where you are, you forget what happened last night. And you don’t care about anything else except for the thing you’re doing.

It’s that feeling of calm. You’re working hard AND enjoying it. You’re putting words on a page. You’re lifting more weights. You’re fighting off your emails. AND you’re making progress.

Well what if I told you, you can have this feeling everyday? And not by chance, but you can WILL it into existence.

Imagine how your output would soar. Imagine getting into the state everyday for a week, a month, a year. That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s possible.

And you won’t believe the results.

So buckle up. It’s going to be a short and sweet ride.

First, know your activity.

My activity is writing. As soon as I sit down to write, I get sucked into it. Next thing I know I’m 700 words in and I realise I missed everything my wife said in the last 10 minutes. I heard what she said and nodded along, but I absorb anything.

Years ago, I had music. I would pick up my guitar and be in the flow for hours. It was automatic. I built the association of playing guitar to being in flow.

If you don’t know what your activity is going to be — it’s gotta meet these points:

It needs to be accessible. I can write on my phone. My guitar is beside my bed. And I can do both everyday. Sure, you might want to choose to run 5 miles everyday, but it won’t be ‘in your face’ all the time.

It doesn’t need to be fun. It needs to be interesting. Your mind is a problem-solving machine. It’s in Flow when it’s solving problems. You need to give it something to solve. Almost any activity you choose will have problems you need to solve to get to mastery. It’ll become fun when you’re in flow.

Forget the numbers. As soon as I started playing guitar for money, I started losing interest in it. As soon as I start thinking about subscribers when I write, I start losing interest in writing. You want to keep fostering the internal interest you have in the activity. Not do it for someone else.

Consistency. You don’t need to worry about this one. If you get to flow state doing what you do, you’ll crave it. You won’t have to ‘make’ time for it, it’ll somehow slot into your schedule. It’s fun. You will want more. And more.

Your environment needs to play to your strengths. On the days I go to the office, I leave home an hour early. Not to be at work early, but to have an hour to write at a café. I go to the same place, the guys behind the counter play the same music, and I sit in the same booth having the same coffee. Almost every day. As soon as I open my laptop sitting there, I’m in Flow. It’s become automatic, and the environment triggers it.

I don’t get the same results writing in my stuffy study at home. It doesn’t work for me.

If your thing is to write — sit in a big open space. It’ll help your creativity. It’ll also help you get into Flow.

How to start:

Look. You won’t feel it right away. That’s okay. It’s like being at the gym. Imagine doing a bicep curl with a comfortable weight — you’re not going to get tired with the first rep. You need to do more to start feeling something. Show up more. That’s why I said it needs to be accessible. You have to be able to do your activity often.

Remember everything you do is for a feeling. You want money because you want to feel rich. You want fame because you want to feel respected and liked. Visualise you are all those things right now. Trigger the feeling now. It’ll help clear your mind for flow to take over. And then nothing else matters.

Here we go. Time to change the world.

Imagine the outcome. The feeling of putting something on a page that someone else will read. Maybe even highlight. Maybe even action. Maybe it’ll change their life.

Can you imagine? Someone you’ve never met, never spoken to or seen, has applied the contents of your mind and it’s helped them change their life? It’s led them to more happiness, freedom, and contentment.

Can you imagine opening your phone to see a ‘thank you’ message from a random person on the internet?

And then, filling up with a feeling of achievement so profound that you can’t stop. You know what you’ve done. Now you won’t stop. You want it again. You want that feeling everyday.

That’s what you’re working towards. That is your goal. Close your eyes and imagine that you’ve already achieved it. Give yourself the energy you need to keep going by BELIEVING you have already helped someone. Choose to feel great now.

That’s flow.

That’s where it comes from.

A profound sense of creating something for the love of creating. Knowing that it might change the world for someone else.

There is no selfishness in Flow. There is only the art. There is only doing. There is no anger, stress, or anxiety in Flow. Hard feelings don’t belong where there is Flow.

And the way to stop feeling stressed, anxious and all those bad things is to start DOING.

Start today. This hour. This minute.

Start now. Write the first word.

That’s it.

Now, finish the sentence.

That’s it.

Now finish the paragraph.

Don’t edit. Don’t judge the words. Only add them to the page. Don’t judge your creative ability. Only write.

It’ll be subtle. You won’t feel anything, but you’ll see the effect. Suddenly, you’re in. Like being on a plane, you don’t feel like you’re in the air. All you felt was the take off. Now you’re in a floating chair in the sky.

All you have to do is control the take off. Then let the autopilot take over. Continue writing.

Stop when you get interrupted, like I’m about to be, by the security guard. I’m sitting in a random office building lobby typing this into my phone.

My kindle is on my left, and my office satchel is on my right. I’m occupying the couch for no good reason in this busy lobby and the concierge has been looking at me for some time, trying to decide if I work here or not.

He doesn’t know I’m in Flow. But that’s okay, he’s going to do his job in a second and kick me out.

Don’t stop writing. Let interruption be your finish line, or exhaustion be your controlled landing.

Don’t stop the Flow.

Don’t sip the coffee, don’t look out the window and don’t look away. You don’t want to tamper with the Flow. You don’t want to threaten it. Flow is delicate. One sudden move and it might leave you. Like an elusive Pokémon.

But that’s okay. Because now you know how you can come back. You know where you’ll find the air strip for take-off. You know that all you have to do is start, and the Flow will come. You’ll again be on a floating seat in the sky.

You’ll again be in the emotionless bliss that is creating your beautiful work. Work that makes you happy. Because you can control that.

Go ahead, make your happiness.

Questions for you to think about:

Harry

P.S. I didn’t get kicked out in the end. It was a Christmas miracle.

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