Finding Flow
Atop the Mighty French Alps
I’m very lucky to have just spent eight days in the French Alps on a wonderful ski holiday. My Alpine retreat was a deep reset. No social media, long days, mostly outside, with close friends and family. And there were two elements of this vacation which I think have important takeaways for our overall health and wellbeing.
First, it was a very active vacation. If the typical time-off means sleeping late, perhaps lazing on the sofa or beach, this one involved an early start each day followed by five hours of ski classes and a packed agenda until late in the evening.
Vacation used to mean forgetting about the alarm clock. Does more rewarding time-off mean setting the alarm just as early, or even earlier, than on a workday?
Don’t get me wrong, I love sleeping! but think about how you feel after a period of typical ‘lazy’ holidays, say at Christmas and New Year. We rarely come out of this time bursting with energy!
Let’s get back to that activity. I’m a relatively novice skier. A handful of days on the artificial slopes and snow of Scotland when I was a young teenager were complemented more than a quarter of a century later on the occasion of my 40th birthday when I started taking advantage of the ideal Barcelona location to visit the Catalan Pyrenees and Andorra. For four years now I’ve spent a handful of days each year on the slopes of Soldeu, La Masella and Baqueira, slowly improving my skills in that time.
So, at the core of this active vacation was learning. (As a brief aside, I remember remarking to a friend that ski-ing would be the first thing my wife and I would learn together. He replied, “and what about raising a child?” An excellent point!)
But it’s more than learning, it’s training. Training is something that my wife and I have experience in from a very early age – athletics in my case and dance for her – systematic practice of our physical selves that helped develop our minds and character in so many positive ways. We both owe so much to the grassroots coaches and teachers who gave up their time to leave a lasting positive impact on the next generation.
Me and my Ski teacher, Didier
On vacation we were learning to ski yes, but that learning was shaped by systematic and repetitive practice, based on physical movement. It is the ‘deliberate practice’ that I discussed in my last article. And therein lies the value of the vacation, and that value comes from improved focus.
This, for me at least, is the great thing about ski-ing. You sharpen your focus. Everything is about that next turn. You may be at the top of a crowded mountain in stormy weather (as was the case on many of my days in the French Alps) but everything you know, everything you’ve learned, all the techniques and adjustments of your arms, waist, backside, shins, ankles and toes – comes down to that next turn.
And when everything comes down to that next turn, all else melts away – all the complexities of life, the anxieties, problems, emails, notifications, dilemmas and discussions. Life, at that moment, is simpler.
And for many of us these days, that simplicity is priceless. For me personally, in the aftermath of releasing a new book when I’ve been feeling vulnerable and often overthinking, that simplicity is precisely what I needed.
And when you get that ski turn absolutely right (which for me is much less than I’d like) you find what Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called flow – the state of complete immersion in an activity, in which we are fully engaged and fulfilled.
Flow allows us to attain high performance, be the best version of ourselves, and allow us to maximise happiness and wellbeing. Often associated with artists and athletes, who do their best work when ‘in the zone’, flow has been identified by researchers to exist in a variety of activities around the world.
Flow is characterized by both the high skill level used and challenge level faced. If we are in flow, we are therefore stretched and using all our abilities to meet the challenge at hand. Flow can also take us away from the physical self. According to Csikszentmihalyi, when total immersion takes place, time, hunger, and ego all disappear.
I think flow is therefore simultaneously the doing and the not doing. Where practice is elevated to a level of simply being. And in a world when we’re always so busy doing, just being is invaluable.
All of this comes from the joy of training. Yes, it can be hard, it can be tiring. Sometimes we don’t want to do it. But sometimes everything clicks into place. Not only are we the best we can be (faster, higher, stronger, more coordinated, whatever the subject of that training is) but it’s also so easy.
It’s as if we’re observers of what we’re doing—ever so slightly detached—rather than being the agent of that action. When it happens, it’s special. But it doesn’t tend to last long. Embrace it. Appreciate it. And if you’ve yet to experience it, you will. Just keep training.
So training is about repetition. Practice, but mindful practice. I’ve talked a lot recently of the importance of mindful practice, the daily pattern, consistency and habit. The familiar. Yet we also need, now and then, the unfamiliar. The new.
And this takes me to the second main takeaway of my Alpine retreat – it was the first time in a long time that everything was brand new.
Like many others I’m sure, my family has our regular holiday destinations. Some by choice, others by necessity, for example, visiting relatives. In this instance, from how we travelled, where we went, who we were with, what we did – everything was a first – and it was wonderful.
Studies on the perception of time have found that as we age, we feel time is passing at a faster rate. Our brain encodes new experiences, but not familiar ones, into memory, and our retrospective perception of time is based on how many new memories we create over a certain period. In other words, the more new memories we build during a holiday, the longer that trip will seem in hindsight.
And it worked for me. Those eight days felt at least double. I’ve come back, admittedly physically tired, but mentally and emotionally refreshed. The memories and emotions of the holiday are locked away and can be recalled at any time when I most need them.
Not quite the conventional definition flow as related to training, but still deep immersion, engagement and fulfillment. Let’s call it glow. The very best of human experience. Right now, we could all do with more glow in our lives.
So, keep exploring. Every new day offers us an opportunity to move again. And I think it helps tremendously if we also move along another path. I mean this literally. A new route allows us to see new things, learn, adopt a different perspective and add distinctness, zest and freshness to our lives should that be required.
Keep exploring, and keep training. You’ll find flow. And some much needed glow.