Living in the moment & finding your flow

“Living in the Present really can help you find your Flow and achieve extraordinary results”

My experiences over the past week have brought home to me a number of life lessons which are so important if you want to reach your potential, perform at your best, and thrive.

They have made me appreciate how important it is to make the most of every experience, every day of your life, as well as the extraordinary capacity people have to achieve amazing feats.

These are some quite personal experiences which I hope you find useful and perhaps they resonate. As always I’m keen to know your thoughts or get your feedback. Have you experienced something similar and what did you think?

Recently one of our close neighbours tragically and suddenly passed away leaving his family and friends completely stunned. My wife and I attended a beautiful service to remember him earlier this week. Whilst there was of course deep sadness and grief there were opportunities to celebrate his life and remember the happy times. At the same time I felt myself reflecting deeply on my life and realising how fortunate I am to have such close family and friends, and even more so, how important it is the embrace every day of your life to the full. Whilst you can’t control every aspect of your life and things can change suddenly, you can control how you choose to embrace every day and live in the moment.

From a psychological and wellbeing perspective living in the moment is important in so many ways. It allows you to channel your energy into the moment and be present. This positively impacts those you engage and share experiences with, deepening relationships. It also helps you to focus better, clear your mind, use your skills fully and activate your energy and force within. When you do this you are more likely to find your flow and as a result perform better or enjoy your experiences more, particularly when challenged.

I have also been fortunate to watch my 13 year old son’s cricket team play in the County Cup Final for their age group this week. Interestingly, they were playing a team who were hot favourites, who had not lost for 4.5 years and who were expected to win convincingly. What myself and the other parents experienced over the next 3 hours was quite extraordinary. My son’s team were able come together tightly in adversity, face the huge challenge face on, and ultimately win the game. I was able to witness (I was umpiring) the game personally close up and see the lads support each other, raise their games and all contribute by batting, bowling, fielding and celebrating together.

At the same time, I was able to witness a quite stunning performance by my son – a real proud parent moment. The opposition were batting and moving steadily towards the target they needed to win, when suddenly the game swung in a matter of a few overs. My son was able to somehow significantly raise the level of his bowling and take 8 wickets in 4 overs conceding only 4 runs, which included 4 wickets in 4 balls. For those that know their cricket this really is a very rare occurrence – something I’ve never seen in junior cricket. The parents and players from our side went crazy, whilst the opposition were completely stunned.

So what does this tell us?

Well what I think I witnessed was someone absolutely finding their “flow” in a moment of high pressure and being able to harness all their skills, energy and inner power to a level where they are quite literally unstoppable and go way beyond their normal limits.

Of course, this doesn’t just happen and it’s often the result of hours and hours of practise and dedication working on your skills and knowledge, so that when such a moment happens, you give yourself the best opportunity of performing at your best and reaching your limits.

Humankind has relied on these “moments” to evolve and progress. Many of the experiences we have today are a result of scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, athletes and explorers most probably getting into the flow whilst they were trying to find those ‘break-through’ moments in engineering, technology or science.

I’d love to hear from you if you have any personal stories about getting into the flow or break-through moments which have come about from hours of dedication to your passion and in the most high pressure moments.

Thank you for reading

Mark

mark@headsupandfreer.com