What activities give feelings of energy, flow, and engagement? I received this question as a homework exercise from my Life Coach. When tending to do a lot, being very busy but not getting much-fulfilled successes on the ground, it is time the reevaluate your activities.
The exercise
This is gonna be a two-week exercise to evaluate the engaged activities. First, could you write down all your daily activities in a list? In the second row, you will write down your feelings about this activity, expressed by a number. Number 1 means very negative and low emotions. Number 10 means very high and positive feelings. After the first week, you will have an overview of the activities, including their impact on your feelings.
You can dive deeper into the reasons beyond these feelings in the second week. What do you like, and what do you don’t like about the activities? Having a clear overview of likes and dislikes can help you move more towards activities you enjoy.
The goal is to move to flow energy and liked activities as much as possible. Are you able to cut out the low energy and disliked activities? We are only sometimes able to do that. If not, can you make it more beneficial by rewarding yourself after doing it or other helpful ideas to improve it?
Creativity as a form of mediation and flow-state.
In a course about “creativity as meditation.” I received to follow your flow instead of your passion. She described that the flow state could come from ordinary or extraordinary activities. The flow state is mostly described as being deeply involved in an activity where time is lost. Which activity this is can differ from person to person.
A book that shares all about the flow state is called “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi? It’s about the psychology of optimal experience. It also talks about healing after traumatic experiences. In short, it describes flow as the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performances, and true happiness.
Let’s see where this is going :). Have you experienced a flow state lately? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.
Thank you for reading.
Warmly,
Anique
