Go With The Flow

Oct 7, 2015

“Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one…”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934 – ) Psychology professor and author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Children are amazing to watch as they spend most of their life ‘in the flow’. They do the things they enjoy. They create. Some of them interact more easily with people, and others with ideas and things. Some of them live with their ‘head in the clouds’ dreaming, and others enjoy detailed activities such as drawing meticulous figures, creating miniature models or pulling complex machines apart and rebuilding them step by step.

I remember my daughter when she was 3 years old at a party. She had been given some ‘business cards’ with the text “Fairy wishes from Bella”. As soon as she arrived at the party, she took them about and began ‘networking’. She went up to groups of people, had a little chat and handed them her ‘card’. People thought she was adorable and raved to me about how good with people she is. They said she must have got it from me. Sure, I love spending time with people, and modelling may play some role, yet this ability in her is innate. She has always been perceptive around people, and she genuinely enjoys interacting with other people. She lives her life ‘flowing’ from one fun activity and person, to the next.

What energises you? Are you in the flow?
The things we do best, easily, make the most sense to us, the things which light us up and energise us are really what we could be spending our time doing. So what prevents us?

What’s one thing you could do today which energises you, lights you up, and keeps you ‘in the flow’?

Have a happy week
Carol