Flow

It was clear to anyone who has watched Free Solo, the film of Alex Honnold’s unprotected solo climb of El Capitan, that one mistake would mean certain death. And yet there was an incredible sense of calm concentration and focus as he moved steadily over the sheer face to the summit.

Alex Honnold on El Capitan

Honnold had practiced on the ascent and rehearsed in his mind every single move his body would make in order to achieve his life-long goal, the first solo ascent, without ropes or harness, of the most formidable rock-face in the world. Most highly experienced climbers would take several days to complete the climb. Honnold completed it in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 46 seconds without trauma, anxiety and panic. He achieved it with his amazing skill and his ability to get himself in the zone, in a state of mind called, Flow.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist, first coined the term in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness, in which he described flow as: a state of concentration so focused that it amounts to complete absorption in an activity and results in the achievement of an ideal state of happiness.

Flow is that state of mind where you become so absorbed in the task at hand that all sense of time disappears and your focus and concentration exclude all other thoughts. This is a common state of mind in climbers where focus and concentration are paramount. Focus drives flow.

Jonny Wilkinson, England Rugby

The state is also called Transient Hypofrontality and results in less activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that usually deals with our thinking and planning. In effect, the noisiest part of our brain quiets down whilst attention, focus and concentration take over. Flow is when you are so focused on the task in hand that everything else disappears. You mind goes quiet and your actions happen with ease. You also lose your sense of self and time distorts. We become able to perform automatically and effortlessly.

It’s important to understand that it is focus that drives flow and that there are psychological triggers that bring our attention to the forefront and result in a “flow” state. There is a balance to be struct between the challenge of the task and the skill of the person.

If a task is too easy we feel bored. If a task is too far out of our comfort zone and we don’t have sufficient ability, we will feel anxious. We are most likely to experience flow if we are highly challenged and our ability level is also high.

A further trigger for a flow state is the ability to quiet our mind and be present in the moment. That means being able to stop the mind from wandering and refocusing in a similar way to meditation techniques. In 1975 Arthur Ashe won the Wimbledon title and spent every rest period quietly meditating and refocusing.

“Getting into a flow state is incredibly difficult”, notes Michael Gervais a sports psychologist, “you can’t just wake up in the morning and say; today I’m going to be in flow, It requires a fundamental commitment to embrace risk, matched by the required skill to thrive in those conditions”

“First you have to have an accurate appraisal of your skills and you have to able to correctly match your skills to the challenge in hand”

Flow Diagram

This maps perfectly onto Alex Hannold, whose level of skill was very high and, obviously, matched the challenge of El Capitan. He says that he assessed the rick as very low, but the consequences [of a mistake] as very high.

You must have a belief in your ability and capacity to improve. You must have a “growth” mindset. You need the mindset first and then the skills to match it. This allows you to be able to match the skills to the challenge.

In the previous blog I spoke about visualization and referred to this need, particularly in elite athletes, to have self-belief and a positive outlook. You have to be able to trust your abilities and in order to achieve the trust required you need time to bring the behaviour to a level where the trust can sit comfortably. In order to gain that trust in yourself you must do hard things over a longer period of time.

There are some pre-conditions that allow the psychological triggers for a flow state.

1. COMMIT TO EMBRACING RISK.

2. COMMIT TO DEVELOP SKILLS NEEDED TO THRIVE IN THOSE CONDITIONS.

3. COMMIT TO A GROWTH MINDSET AND ACCURATELY BE ABLE TO APPRAISE YOUR SKILL LEVEL.

4. TIME X BEHAVIOUR = TRUST. BY CONSTANTLY DOING HARD THINGS OVER A PERIOD OF TIME YOU MUST BE COMFORTABLE WITH THE CHALLENGE.

The challenge to skill ratio is finely balanced and, in order to get into a flow state, needs to be slightly outside your comfort zone. And you will need to be able to completely concentrate, perhaps by meditation, to help focus your attention systems.

There are also several social and environmental triggers.

1. THE ENVIRONMENT MUST BE RICH, FULL OF NOVELTY, COMPLEXITY AND UNPREDICTABILITY. WE ONLY ACHIEVE DIFFERENT MENTAL STATES BY STEPPING OUTSIDE OUR ASSUMPTIONS AND COMFORT ZONES. THESE ARE NOT OFTEN IN OUR CONTROL.

2. THERE NEEDS TO BE A DEEP EMBODIMENT, IT MUST ENGAGE ALL THE SENSES AT ONCE. THIS ENCOURAGES YOUR BRAIN TO FOCUS TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL.

3. THERE NEED TO BE HIGH CONSEQUENCES, PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, MENTAL OR EMOTIONAL RISKS. (THE CONSEQUENCES OF A MISTAKE OF THE SOLO ASCENT ARE DEATH!)

Flow state experience is actually a spectrum, ranging from the micro flow to the macro flow. Micro flow is a lighter experience of the state. Macro flow is the full-blown experience.

So, whatever you do, to get into the possibility of a flow state you must engage in continuous and deliberate practice of the skills required. When you develop a higher level of skill you increase the level of challenge to which you can expose yourself.

You can also use strategies like meditation to train your mind to find focus and concentration. Visualization will also help create mental focus and concentration.

Mindfulness and meditation improve our ability to focus which improves our ability to find flow.

Focus drives flow.

Alex Hannold’s obsession, with no margin for error, is flow at the extreme macro level.