8 Steps To Boost Mind Power - Activate Your Subconscious Mind Power (Law Of Attraction)

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Studies conducted around the world these last few decades have
shown that in whatever context people feel a deep sense of enjoyment,
they describe that experience in very similar terms.
Regardless of age, gender, or education, they report
the same mental state.
What they are actually doing at the time is wildly different.
They may be meditating, running a race, playing
chess, or performing surgery, but what they feel at the moment
is remarkably consistent.
I have given the name "flow" to this common experience,
because so many people have used the analogy of being carried
away by an outside force, of moving effortlessly with a current
of energy, at the moments of highest enjoyment.
The most widely reported flow activity the world over is reading a
good book, during which one becomes immersed in the characters
and their vicissitudes to the point of forgetting oneself.
The person's consciousness when he or she is genuinely enjoying the moment, that is,
having a flow experience, can be described in terms
of eight conditions.
Not all of them inevitably accompany flow, and their relative importance
may vary, but by and large they are the most salient components
of what it feels like to be in flow.
Let us review them one by one.
Number one.
Goals are clear.
For a person to become deeply involved in any
activity, it is essential that he know precisely what tasks he must accomplish,
moment by moment.
For instance, what involves the rock climber is not the ultimate goal of reaching
the top of the mountain, but the immediate task of making the next
move without falling.
A mother gets "totally absorbed" in reading with her daughter not because she
is concerned that her daughter be well educated, but because when
they are together she wants to respond to every turn of her
daughter's body and mind.
Of course the ultimate goals of these activities-reaching the summit, getting a child to love reading
are also important but true enjoyment comes from
the steps one takes toward attaining a goal, not from actually
reaching it.
People often miss the opportunity to enjoy what they do because
they focus all their attention on the outcome, rather than savoring
the steps along the way.
Where does the pleasure in singing come from, finishing the song, or producing
each note or phrase?
Do we appreciate a fine dinner because we feel full at its
end, or because each bite has tasted good?
Isn't negotiating a business deal more satisfying than signing it?
To be overly concerned with the ultimate goal often interferes
with performance.
Number two.
Feedback is immediate.
It is difficult for people to stay absorbed in any activity unless they get timely, "online"
information about how well they are doing.
The sense of total involvement of the flow experience derives in large part from
knowing that what you do matters, that it has consequences.
Feedback may come from colleagues or supervisors who comment on performance,
but preferably it is the activity itself that
will provide this information.
For instance, a climber doesn't have to worry whether or not
his moves are successful as long as he is still hanging safely onto
the rock.
Surgeons depend on more subtle but to them equally
obvious signals.
A mother can tell from behavioral signs when her daughter becomes
bored or distracted, and can change her approach until the child
is involved again.
Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards
that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge
whether they have performed a task well or not.
The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the
mark of the expert.
Number three.
A balance between opportunity and capacity.
It is easier to become completely involved in a task if we believe
it is doable.
If it appears to be beyond our capacity, we tend
to respond to it by feeling anxious; if the task is too easy we get bored.
In either case attention shifs from what needs to be accomplished,
the anxious person is distracted by worries about the
outcome, while the bored one starts searching for other things
to do.
The ideal condition can be expressed by the simple formula: flow
occurs when both challenges and skills are high and equal to
each other.
However, be aware.
What is challenging to one person may not be so for
anyone else.
Few people regard a sheer wall of rock as an opportunity;
most will simply ignore it.
Yet the fact is that any activity can produce flow, because hidden in even the most seemingly
mundane tasks, working on the assembly line, talking to one's child,
or washing dishes, are opportunities for using one's
skills.
Of all human talents, among the most precious is this
ability to discern opportunities around oneself, where others do not.
In a given situation, one person will say "there is nothing to do,"
whereas another will find dozens of things to do and enjoy.
The individual who is truly engaged with the world-interested,
curious, excited-is never at a loss for opportunities
to experience flow.
Number four.
Concentration deepens.
When we begin to respond to an opportunity that has clear goals and provides immediate
feedback, we are likely to become involved in it, even
if the activity itself is not very "important" such as a game, a hobby,
or a stimulating conversation.
When the involvement passes a certain threshold of
intensity, we suddenly find ourselves deeply into the game, the pursuit,
or the interaction.
We no longer have to think about what to do, but act spontaneously, almost automatically,
even when some aspect of the task at hand is very difficult
or dangerous.
In those moments the distinction between self and activity disappears.
Concentration in flow can be so deep that the term "ecst@sy" is
sometimes used to describe it.
In Greek, ecst@sy meant literally "to stand to the side"; in its figurative sense
it likewise means to be standing outside everyday routine life in
a separate reality defined by the rules and demands of an activity.
Some find ecst@sy by actually moving from one space to another-into a temple,
a museum, a majestic natural setting.
Others attain ecst@sy while sitting at their desk, letting
their mind move into a different world where only numbers, verses,
chess problems, or musical notes exist.
Number five.
The present is what matters.
Because in flow the task at hand demands complete attention, the worries and problems
that are so nagging in everyday life have no chance to
register in the mind.
It is for this reason that an enjoyable experience
produces an ecstatic state, the sensation of being in a different
world.
For the chess player, this world becomes limited to the
pieces on the board and their respective fields of force; for a composer,
the world is made up of little black marks on paper and the
sounds they represent.
The world of flow is limited not only in space, but also in time: because
attention must be focused on the present, events from the
past or the future cannot find room in consciousness.
The human mind is programmed to turn to threats, to unfinished
business, to failures, and unfulfilled desires when it has nothing
else more urgent to do, when attention is left free to wander.
Without a task to focus our attention, most of us find ourselves
getting progressively depressed.
In flow there is no room for such rumination.
This feature of flow may at first seem to resemble suspiciously
what we would ordinarily call an "escape mechanism."
It is true that flow does provide a relief from obsessively
dwelling on unpleasant thoughts, much as more familiar forms of escape
- alcohol, dr*gs, promiscuous s@x provide.
But the consequences are quite different.
Because flow involves meeting challenges and developing skills, it leads to growth.
It is an escape forward from current reality, whereas stimulants like dr*gs
lead backward.
Number six.
Control is no problem.
When people describe their flow experiences, one of the first things they mention is a
strong sense of being in control of the situation.
In everyday life, we are constantly exposed to events over which we have no say:
A careless driver on the freeway, an erratic boss, a slumping economy.
In the clearly circumscribed world of a flow activity, we
know that as long as we respect its challenges and develop the appropriate
skills to meet them, we stand a good chance to be able to
cope with the situation.
Some people experience it as an ability to control others.
In general, though, the feeling has more to do with the ability to control one's own
performance than the environment itself.
Total mental and physical control.
Total control of one's own mind is in fact too strong an expression
to describe accurately what happens when one is in flow.
The point is not that one can always do what one wants, but rather
that the possibility of making things happen as one wishes is present
in a way that seldom occurs in "real" life.
All flow activities have their own specific logic and beauty, so that when
acting according to their rules, it is difficult to ascertain
who is in control, the actor, or the script.
Surrender to the requirements of the situation is a
feature of flow even in physical activities where control would
seem to be a matter of necessity.
Number seven.
The sense of time is altered.
One typical element of the flow experience is that time feels different.
Quite often, it seems to be flying by.
A chess player comments: "Time passes a hundred times faster.
In this sense, it resembles the dream state."
A surgeon agrees.
"Time is totally distorted, faster.
What seems like fifteen minutes has been two hours."
In some cases the opposite effect takes place, and time seems
to expand rather than contract.
Many athletes would recognize their own experiences in that of Donovan Bailey,
world record holder for the fifty-meter race and former
Olympic champion in the one-hundred-meter event, who says that
the 9.8 seconds it takes him to run the race feel like an eternity.
The speed at which time passes depends on "absorption," that is, on how focused
the mind is.
The reason we assume that all time intervals are
the same is that we have invented clocks that measure time as
if that were the case.
Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour.
But in reality we experience time far more subjectively,
so that at various times it seems to speed up, slow down, or stand still.
In flow, the sense of time adapts itself to the action at hand.
Number eight.
The loss of ego.
Many of the descriptions of flow have mentioned the fact that while immersed
in the experience one tends to forget not only one's problems
and surroundings, but one's very self.
It is as if awareness of one's personhood were temporarily suspended.
This is another result of the intense focusing of attention that pushes anything
not directly related to the task at hand out of consciousness.
The climber Dennis Eberl, recounting a difficult ascent of the
Matterhorn, speaks of those "rare moments of almost orgiastic
unity as I forget myself and become lost in action."
Clearly the climber does not "forget" himself in the sense
of becoming unaware of his position, or the placement of his fingers
and toes on the vertical surface.
In fact he is probably much more aware of his
body and its functions than he is when off the rock.
Neither does the surgeon or the pianist become unaware
of his fingers, or the chess player of the strategies jostling in
her mind.
What they do forget is their social personae - name, rank,
and serial number, so to speak, with all the responsibilities these
entail.
It is an exhilarating feeling to be momentarily relieved of self
consciousness, of one's ambitions and defeats, fears and desires.
If that feeling is not always so deep as to warrant the description
of "orgiastic unity," it is frequently one of belonging to some
greater entity, whether a tradition or the "harmony of the spheres"
that is often mentioned by musical performers as the peculiar order
in consciousness they experience while playing.
Or it can merely be the satisfYing sense that one belongs
to an efficient group working toward the same purpose.
Western cultures differ from those of the rest of the world in
emphasizing individuality, autonomy, and the separation of the
self from its social matrix.
Yet as human beings we continue to need the feeling that we belong to a community,
to an entity greater than ourselves.
Daily life offers few opportunities to experience this feeling, and then often only in settings
where we are more or less passive audience members at a
public performance, such as a concert, a sports event, a religious
service, or political rally.
Thus the transcendence of individuality that flow makes possible
provides a rare chance to take an active involvement in something
larger than the self, without relinquishing mental,
physical, or volitional skills.
While one typically forgets the self during the flow experience,
after the event a person's self-esteem reappears in a stronger form
than it had been before.
When measurements are taken of variations in self-esteem during the day, one finds that
after approaching a flow-like state a person's self-esteem score
climbs significantly.
Similarly, people who have more flow experiences also have higher
self-esteem overall.
While unexpected, this paradoxical finding is
not really that surprising.
Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy, it must come as the unintended
consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

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8 Steps To Boost Mind Power - Activate Your Subconscious Mind Power (Law Of Attraction)

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