Getting into flow
A theoretical and practical approach to a better understanding of how complex and multilayered a pursuit for the best performance is.
In sport psychology, Freediving is seen as an extreme sport. Extreme sports are defined as pushing the limits of sport. For the athlete, this means an extraordinary technical, logistical, physical, or psychological challenge, which is usually associated with high risks. Well, Freediving is like any other sport, it can be practiced on a wide range of possibilities, from a fun leisure activity on a reef to an advanced level where you learn to be more conscious of how you reach and approach your progression to a point of where you master yourself, your body and mind with precision, dedication, and persistence. On all levels, you can experience a deep dive into your soul, a feeling of true connection and belonging, and maybe even a state of pure flow.
In the next section, we will go right there, where the experience of flow is not just a wave we caught by chance, it is learnable by schooling our consciousness, learning about our primal needs, and getting in touch with the complexity of our inner world. This essay will highlight the interdependence and the correlation between several aspects, and combine several theories, which will help bring an athlete to the Ideal Performance State.
The flow state, researched by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a pioneer in the scientific study of happiness, is often mentioned as a goal for psychological training in sports. Flow is characterized by complete absorption in the action, without distracting thoughts or performance-inhibiting emotions, with a simultaneous loss of the sense of time.In many interviews with artists and athletes, Csikszentmihalyi was able to identify several prerequisites for experiencing flow that were common to all. The most important one is a balance between the demands of a task and individual ability. In addition, a clear goal with immediate feedback and a focus of attention on the task seems to be important.
As shown in the graph an optimal flow state is created when people tackle perceived challenges to be at just the right level of ‘stretch’ for their skill sets. In other words, neither too tough to trigger anxiety nor too easy to be bored.
In addition to that, the key to achieving an optimal experience is that of the ‘autotelic’ experience. Autotelic means intrinsically motivated with self-contained goals, in which an individuum can translate potential threats into enjoyable challenges. The targets are reached through many trials and errors and of course reflection. The ability to reflect on the hard skills, the technical and physical side, is mostly the first approach for many in progression (from the outside to the inside training). Furthermore, a bit more complex is the capability to train the soft skills, our mental and emotional strength (from the inside to the outside training), like the emotional intelligence to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions for becoming more resilient in what we do.
First of all, building up more inner capacity needs a certain level of honesty, in which we take layers of layers down, making ourselves vulnerable, opening up to the possibility to work on our blind spots, and doing shadow work in our subconscious mind. Practices like Mindfulness supports athlete in the quality of being present and fully engaging with whatever they’re doing – free from distraction or judgment and aware of their thoughts and feelings without getting caught in them. Meditation and simple mindfulness exercises teach self-awareness and self-management tools to live a life that has a greater sense of presence, clarity, focus, and balance. There is a potential to grow and flourish which promotes calmness and composure, self-control skills, and enables athletes to work/train under pressure, cope with stress to take charge of their relief, and face challenges more confidently. Inner Work and Self-practices don’t eliminate stress or other difficulties; instead by becoming aware of what’s present, of the unpleasant thoughts and emotions, we get more choices in how to handle them at the moment – to a better chance of reacting calmly and empathetically.
So, Flow is the process of achieving happiness through control over one’s inner life. The optimal state of inner experience is order in consciousness and through that, finding a way to express what moves through us. We strive for harmony between body and mind to a place of mindful motion and action, where we interact with the world and ourselves from a state of being. In Flow, we talk about the loss of sense of self or in other words the feeling of oneness, where the person and the activity are not detached from each other, but form a unity to a feeling of being part of the whole. Like climbers would say becoming one with the mountains and for us freedivers, the art of becoming one with the ocean, to fully merge with nature. There is a beautiful saying: “From living off nature, living with nature, living in nature to living as nature.” When we allow ourselves to not see ourselves as separate from nature, we allow ourselves to be in constant growth and transformation like nature always did and does. Somehow along the way we forgot that, and we often experience a sense of being stuck, finding ourselves on a ‘dead-end road’, and experiencing resistance and pushbacks. Nature is a good reminder and teaches us wonderful metaphors for our personal growth and potential, they are gifts along our way when we walk through life with a receptive and open heart, mind, and body.
Of course, our coach, partner, or training buddy could support us emotionally and mentally with metaphoric language, but for a deeper understanding of where we are right now, we need to slow down, take a break, rest, and regenerate – check-in in with ourselves - dream and visualize our own picture of where we are right now and how it could look like in the future in the most beautiful and satisfying way. Like that we create drive, we are connected inside to all our inner parts and even our subconscious mind starts to support us.
Let’s get back into sports psychology and take all the knowledge from above with us. Terry Orlick, a leading teacher and coach often talks about the zone of excellence. Excellence is a term used to describe performance above the limits of performance. “Excellence in performance and in life begins with a vision of where you want to go and a commitment to do what it takes to get there (..). There are seven critical elements of excellence that guide your pursuit of personal excellence: commitment, focused connection, confidence, positive images, mental readiness, distraction control and ongoing learning. These elements, which make up the wheel of excellence, provide the mental keys that empower you to excel and free you to become the person and performer you really want to be. The great news is that each of these elements of excellence is within your potential control.”
Decide what you want to change, improve, or accomplish. Choose to focus on positive and fully connected ways. Act on your positive intentions: “What enables you to become great at what you do?”
Commitment and Belief form the inner circle and are the critical components of excellence. The five remaining elements of excellence channel commitment and belief into positive actions. The elements are closely linked and often operate interdependently. A positive image ensures that we roll forward in a clear concrete direction of visible goals. Being in full focus gives us the capacity to strengthen the elements and engage in the right things at the right time. Mental readiness enables us to be consistent in our high-level performance, it prepares us to enter a performance at the right moment and in the right frame of mind. Distraction control supports us in staying on our desired path and helps us to get back on track when we stray away. The power of constructive evaluation makes sure that we continue to grow by drawing out positive lessons along the way and acting on them every day. Together they open a new realm that will empower us to journey where we have never been before.
Conclusion
As the article above shows, there is a whole other world to explore for an extreme sport like freediving. And yet for an athlete, a coach, or recreational freediver, there are different approaches and different skills needed. For an athlete’s self- empowerment, inner work and the path of knowing how to get to a point of excelling is crucial. The passion for pursuit, the willingness to work hard and persist in the face of challenges and obstacles to an extent in which they grow to believe in themselves and in what they do. It will bring them over time with discipline, routines, and lots of self-love to a place where they are mentally and emotionally strong and capable of switching into a flow mode by knowing exactly what they need to do for achieving this Ideal Performance State.
For a coach, it is beneficial to know how to make your clients mentally and emotionally stronger. It is essential to structure what belongs in a pre- during- after session talk. A coach navigates through the training fully focused on empowering clients, implementing step by step new skills, and celebrating what’s already there, and using it as a strong foundation. A coach can support and assist clients most possibly with the help of open powerful questions (what, why, how) and felt sense practices (bodily awareness). Ideally, a coach will invite the client to figure out their own inner response/answer where to go and how to get there, and make himself/herself more and more redundant.
Furthermore, for everyone, it is so healthy to know how to distinguish our emotions and feelings. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is talking about the ability to perceive, interpret, demonstrate, control, evaluate, and use emotions to communicate with and relate to others effectively and constructively. Regulating and managing emotions and responding accurately is probably the highest level of being in our adult self – through inner child work, we focus on addressing our unmet needs by reparenting ourselves. The journey of self-discovery helps us to understand our behaviors, triggers, wants, and needs.
It's not that we all must start now reading self-improvement books and attending therapy, digging into our deepest hidden spots and corners. The relieving answer is just to be aware that our inner world is complex and, in a way, magical. That it is a precious gift to be worth exploring whenever we are ready. By emerging ourselves into water, which is already pure healing itself, we allow ourselves to rest, to settle, and to express (movements) what’s alive in us. We connect on a deeper level from where we come from (source) and the quality of water her fluidity and gentleness, her wildness and roughness are somehow a mirror of what we are and that we can’t see ourselves separate from nature.
written in DAHAB for my Instructor Course 2023
References
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Flow, the secret to happiness [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2000) Flow im Sport. Der Schlüssel zur optimalen Erfahrung und Leistung. München: BLV-Verlagsgesellschaft
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Mindfulness, MBSR Training: https://www.headspace.com
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Terry Orlick: Zone of excellence.
http://www.zoneofexcellence.ca/free/wheel.html
Terry Orlick (1986). Psyching for Sport, mental training for athletes.http://www.zoneofexcellence.ca/free/psyching%20for%20sport.pdf
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