Latest / The Pausecast / Ep. 108: How to Map Your Flow for Corporate Executives

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Ep. 108: How to Map Your Flow for Corporate Executives · The Pausecast

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  Hey you, it's Rachel O'meara. I'm host of the Pause cast and
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  I'm so glad that you are here. We are discussing tips and
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  proven strategies in the world of emotional intelligence so
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  that you can rise to your next level of leadership without the
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  overwhelm. I'm also the author of the book
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  Pause Harnessing the Life Changing Power of Giving
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  Yourself a Break based on my burnout of Google and all the
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  things that I've learned since that are really in this realm of
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  neuroscience, psychology, and emotional intelligence.
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  If you're interested to download my free guidebook for How to get
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  over out of Overwhelmed, I invite you to do that at
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  rachelomara.com/guidebook. Just so excited?
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  Let's just start and dive in. Hey you, Rachel here.
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  And I have a very cool, very groundbreaking concept today to
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  talk to you about how to map your flow and why that's so
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  important as a corporate leader. Let me get into this flow, flow
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  state. We've all heard of this, right?
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  It's in the zone. It's when we're feeling in the
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  groove, athletes talk about it like the zone.
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  Corporate leaders, I would think and leaders just talk about
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  being in the groove, right? You've you've hit your groove
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  and it's like time doesn't exist when we're in flow.
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  As you know, maybe you've been in it, right?
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  Think of the last time you were in Flow.
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  What were you doing when and how did that happen for you?
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  Maybe you lost track of time, Maybe you felt really good and
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  you just embraced what you were doing and you just felt super
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  excited about what it was and kind of got a little high out of
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  it. We've all kind of experienced
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  this in different ways. The key with Flow is that it's
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  actually a map and I want to share with you how this works.
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  This is from the work of Mahali Cheek set me high, right?
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  So Mahali cheek set me high really came up with this term
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  flow state. And you can check him out in the
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  Wikipedia. He's written lots of papers and
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  I think he even has a Ted talk about this.
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  He is no longer with us. He passed away in 2021, but I
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  want to bring his work in today because it's so important as I
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  really do think this is a map to know how to get out of burnout.
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  In my opinion, if people knew they were in flow or not and
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  then they were able to map themselves in these other states
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  that kind of are around flow, then you could decide how to do
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  something different. So here's how this works.
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  Let me let me share with you. And I know you don't have a
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  visual, so if you want to go to the Wikipedia page for Mahali's
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  cheeks at me, how you'll see this cool graphic.
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  It's like a pinwheel with different states, but I'm going
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  to visualize this for you. So imagine you've got in X&Y
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  axis, X axis, right, X axis, you've got skill level from low
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  to high, So what is your skill level?
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  And on the Y axis you've got challenge from low to high.
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  Low is at the very bottom and challenge is at the very high.
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  So if you're in flow state, what do you think?
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  Where does that match? It's kind of where your skills
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  meet the challenge. So it's not like you're doing
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  things without skill. Whatever your skill is, there's
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  a challenge there. And that's what flow is, was
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  when you've met the challenge in the right appropriate amount of
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  skill. And that makes sense, right?
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  So imagine whatever you were doing when you were in Flow,
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  there was a skill associated with it.
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  You probably put hours in on practice or you've developed
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  your talents enough to know what that is like.
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  It might be gardening, let's say, right?
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  It's not necessarily a talent, but well, maybe it is.
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  For me, it's a talent because I I don't have a lot of green
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  thumb in me. But there's a skill there,
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  right? You need to know how to tilt the
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  soil. You know how to tend the plants,
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  water the plants well, do something in a way that feels
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  good. So what happens when you are not
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  in flow? Like let's say you feel bored at
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  work. Well, if you were to take that
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  same graph and go from low to high skill, my guess is maybe
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  you've got some good skills, but the challenge is low.
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  You're not feeling challenged enough, right?
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  So there's another association with the state.
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  Now that's not flow. Maybe that's boredom and and the
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  graphic is boredom's kind of that lower half of challenge,
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  right? So there's lower, there's less
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  challenge and the skill is like medium because maybe you're not
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  necessarily like fully engaged. So how do you get out of that?
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  And this is great because a lot of times when we're bored or we
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  feel apathy or even ambivalent, it's because we have kind of
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  we're not necessarily challenged.
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  We don't feel like we're motivated in a way that
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  challenges us. So we have to increase our
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  skills. If we increase our skills, we're
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  going to move over in that graph back up to flow because our
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  skills either we're going to develop them and the challenge
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  also needs to rise. It's actually more of the
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  challenge, I think in this case with the boredom, right?
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  So, so you might need to take on something new.
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  Or maybe that means you've exhausted all your your
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  opportunities at this in this role and you need to go outside
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  of the role to get something that serves you in this
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  challenge or ask for a new project or whatever that might
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  be. That's the key with flow.
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  So depending on where you are on this map, maybe you're bored.
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  Maybe you maybe you're overwhelmed, right.
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  Let's go the opposite way. Maybe you're feeling anxious.
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  Well, that's because maybe the challenge is too high.
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  Maybe you're new on the job and like, holy cow, how do I learn
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  all this stuff? Because your skills aren't where
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  they need to be yet. You just started.
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  So the more you can push out the skills, then you'll get into
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  flow because the challenge might stay the same.
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  So all I'm saying here is, first, know where you are on the
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  map. Where are you in your job?
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  Are you in flow state as a leader?
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  Awesome. Like that's ideal.
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  Like really? You can't get better than that.
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  But you can optimize more, right?
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  You can even help others be in flow with you if you're feeling
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  maybe the less less challenge, right?
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  Maybe you're bored, you're totally like relaxed, or maybe
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  you're empathetic, which is like super low.
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  Then we need to increase the the challenges.
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  And if you're on the other end of the spectrum, like you're
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  overwhelmed, you're anxious, it's we need to increase our
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  skills to get to that challenge or we have to change the
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  challenges, right. And so that's the key.
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  And I truly do think that when we're looking at overwhelmed,
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  it's these two levers. We either need to increase our
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  skill and maybe that maybe that's an option, maybe it's
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  not, or we need to change the challenge, we need to shift, we
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  need to either set more boundaries, we need to ask for
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  new projects. It just depends on where you are
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  with regards to the flow state. So I want to pause there because
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  this is a big concept and I also think it's pretty groundbreaking
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  because we don't usually think of flow at all when it comes to
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  feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
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  But the reality is it's actually a big clue as your ideal versus
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  feeling overwhelmed. If we're overwhelmed, clearly
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  we're in this bucket where the challenge is too high and we
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  can't access maybe the skills we need or we don't have the skills
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  or there's more challenges than we can take on, like all these
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  things, which a lot, which lead us to feeling anxious or
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  worried, which is in the map here on the far left and the X&Y
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  axis. So what are you getting out of
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  this for yourself? Because I think there's a take
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  away here for every one of us who's listening to know if
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  you're, if you're not, like there are parts of our lives
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  where we're in flow, which is great, and there might be parts
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  of our lives where we're not in flow.
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  And all that means, by the way, is to say, oh, OK, well, I'm,
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  I'm clearly taking too much on. There's too many challenges
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  here. So what can I do to change to
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  shift that? Can I lower the challenges,
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  meaning maybe setting boundaries, maybe taking
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  something off my plate, maybe prioritizing the three things
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  versus the 10 things? Or do I increase my skills
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  somehow? Do I keep on these challenges?
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  But my skills will increase so that I match them to get myself
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  into flow. And this all comes down to
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  personal choice, right? Like, I think that's the key.
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  Flow exists between boredom and anxiety.
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  So we have to either add the challenge or increase skill to
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  maintain the flow. I think that's a really key
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  concept here. And when you think about stress,
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  it's so simple. Like this is the.
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  This is the key. How do I shift this so I'm in
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  back in my flow, because flow is where the joy is, right?
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  Like think about this zone, right.
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  And I want to share a little bit of the science behind that
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  because I think it's important to note, right.
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  So flow, like if you notice flow, you've lost track of time,
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  let's say, right? There's the, there's the science
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  behind this, which which is really important.
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  So the human brain processes these things at 110
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  milliseconds, meaning you know that's that's to give you A to
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  give you a range. So we process speaking what
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  you're hearing me say right now you're processing at 60
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  milliseconds in your brain. So when you're in flow, you're
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  at peak processing, right. So that's you're taking all the
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  110 things of of the of the how the brain is optimized for for
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  practice which means you're not sensing anything else.
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  Everything is getting directed to this.
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  So that's why we lose sense of time, we're losing awareness of
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  things like other other things like you don't hear anything,
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  you don't you maybe don't smell anything.
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  Like there's things like that because we're optimizing neural
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  processing and we're all directing it towards the
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  activity we're doing. I love knowing that because it
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  makes a lot of sense to me knowing that no wonder we feel
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  like we're in flow. It's there's actually a
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  neurological reason and if we take too much on that's why
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  we're our brain is over processing.
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  It's at this it's it's going it's being asked to go beyond
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  110 milliseconds. So what's interesting to me is
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  if you ever hear two people speak at the same time and then
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  you like can't follow both of them, right?
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  Like you can kind of get pieces of each one, but it's really
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  hard to track two conversations continuously at once.
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  So that would be if you add 60 and 60, right.
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  Remember I said 60 is a one person speaking, that's 120,
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  that's above the human processing of 110 optimization
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  milliseconds. So what that means is we can't
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  do that. Like our brains are not allowed.
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  Like they don't, they don't process at that level.
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  So we lose parts of the two conversations.
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  That's why multitasking is challenging, right.
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  We don't still we lose IQ 10% by the way when we multitask.
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  And so no wonder we want to be in flow because we're at this
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  peak 110, so our brains are humming along.
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  We're super excited because we're doing something that feels
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  really good and and then we're we're not over it.
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  We're like if we're feeling, if we're getting asked to do more
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  then we're over that 110, like that's the anxiety kicking in,
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  that's the worry kicking in. If we're below that, if we're
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  like you know lower, that's when we're bored because our brains
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  have this capacity it wants to fill.
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  So I just love knowing this and I hope you love knowing this
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  because it makes so much sense to me why we're burning out and
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  why people across the planet, one out of three in business,
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  one out of two in healthcare are at their wit's end and and not
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  able to do things and but a part of it lays on us to shift into
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  flow and how do we do that? We either lower the skill or we
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  lower the challenge or we raise one and that's it people, that's
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  it. Which might mean we shift the
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  systems we're in and make requests at work for something
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  different. That's our personal power.
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  We can, we can talk about and I I hope you get to listen to that
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  episode about the inner CEO because it talked a lot about
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  personal power there. But I think this is a big, huge
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  game changer when we start to think about mapping our flow and
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  where we are with Burnout. I hope that this is helpful for
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  you and I know we don't have a visual, but go to the Wikipedia
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  page and Maholey's name is super hard to to to to spell maholey
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  cheeks set me high. So just look up flow State
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  Wiki's flow state and you'll you'll see that there.
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  We do a lot of work about this in my course Executive
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  Leadership Accelerator. We have a whole module on it.
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  I've talked a lot about this with my my one-on-one clients
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  because people are under the assumption that like, flow state
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  is some phenomenon that doesn't exist.
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  If I'm feeling burned out, well yeah, but you can also get there
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  through shifting these skills and these challenges.
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  But if you see the visual, it becomes way more manageable to
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  to know what to do because you're going to see where you
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  fall in the map and you're going to be like, oh, I'm just bored.
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  I'm just or I'm just, I'm just in this worry mode, which is me
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  not matching the skills. I need to grow these skills or I
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  need to decrease the challenges and that will serve me to be in
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  Flow state. I hope this is helpful for you
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  corporate leaders. I know you've got this and if
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  you want, if you have questions, you want to see more, no more,
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  just message me. I'm happy to share more tools,
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  give you some thoughts around that.
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  I've got a lot of really good resources in this.
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  And yeah, this is a big, this is a big one.
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  So thank you so much and I wish you all the best.
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  Excited to hear how it goes with you with Flow.
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  Enjoy being more in Flow and how to get there now that you have
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  the map. Thanks for listening today to
• 13:23
  the podcast You Rock. If you haven't already, please
• 13:26
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• 13:29
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• 13:31
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• 13:35
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