Find Your Flow
I have been sitting in The Office, a chain restaurant local to New Jersey, for about 30 minutes now. Since I sat down and ordered my Czig Meister Angler New England IPA, I have read several articles and started reading a famous psychological study from 1949 - all of which are in support of finishing the third part of my book. In short, I have gotten a lot of shit done.
I find it funny because up until this moment I had spent most of the day procrastinating. I wasn't lazy by any definition. I did two loads of laundry, reorganized the guest room, unpacked from our vacation, and started "getting stuff done" that had no business of needing done.
Is this just me, or do you do this too?
It's the type of procrastination that happens when you are motivated to do everything except for the one thing you want to do. The best part, is that the section of my book I was procrastinating working on is all about motivation. Oh, the irony.
The title of the post from August 28th, The Complexities of Motivation, sums it up well: Motivation is complex. Not complicated, mind you. Complicated would imply that after a certain amount of effort and study we could unravel the difficulties and start to understand details, line them up in a nice row, and get to where we want to go. Complicated means it's hard to do, but it can be done. Complex, on the other hand, is often used to describe a system that has no clear solution. We ask question after question only to reveal more questions. We unravel and untwine but still end up with something messier than a box of Christmas lights.
Yes, that's it. Trying to understand motivation is like trying to unravel Christmas lights. You'll spend countless hours and just when you think you've made progress, you plug it in and discover that half the chain you just unraveled is dead.
So what do we do? Do we toss out the box and buy new lights? We could… but we'll end up in the same exact spot next year. Either way, whether we stick with what we got or try a new method, it's not going to be perfect. Nevertheless, we should still try to unravel the complexities because a house lit up with lights is better than the cold dark of Winter.
Wow, that was more poetic than I tend to write… I think it's the IPAs… but I don't care because I'm having more fun than I've had in a while. You know why? I've found my Flow.
Flow is a motivation term that Daniel H. Pink uses in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Created by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow Theory was defined in the 1970s through studies of various creative types that live and create without the typical rewards of money of fame. As M. Biasutti describes, Csikszentmihalyi was "surprised to discover that enjoyment did not result from relaxing or living without stress, but during these intense activities, in which their attention was fully absorbed. He called this state flow, because during his research, people illustrated their intense experiences using the metaphor of being carried by a current like a river flows."
As Pink describes, what makes Flow possible is that the relationship between what a person "had to do" vs "what he could do" was perfect. It wasn't too hard, nor too easy. That balance is what makes Flow possible. He quotes poet W. H. Auden when he describes someone's true calling:
"…you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function."
That is Flow, forgetting yourself in a function, and that is the goal when it comes to motivation. You want to create an environment where you are enjoying yourself so much you forget why you are even there.
I have very high intrinsic motivation when it comes to finishing my book. I have a clear understanding of my higher purpose and why I want to do it. I have clear goals and plans mapped out to get me there, but at the end of the day I am human just like everyone else and we live in a complex world. All the studies on motivation are done in closed systems: monkeys trying to complete puzzles for raisins or children drawing pictures for a prize. They aren't real life. Real life has so many layers.
When you try to understand what motivates you, please remember that everything I am writing and sharing is just one piece of the puzzle. It doesn’t factor in your complex life situation or any unique behavioral needs. These studies are one quick look at one small population and in most cases not even human population. It's a clue to try and help you figure out what makes you tick, in hopes that you can achieve your goals. That's all. It's not perfect, but it's something.
If I had to pick one thing though to help you focus your motivation efforts I would tell you this: do whatever you can to find your flow. Look back and pin point the moments when you are doing exactly what you want to be doing; the moments when it comes so easy that you forget about all the effort it took to get you in that moment. If you want to be motivated… create moments where Flow is more likely to happen. It's not about the rewards or the punishment, it's just a situation where you have taken away the barriers and allowed the space for your intrinsic motivation to come through.
