You: You’re a focused go-getter. You thrive in intense situations, both personally and professionally. “Run of the mill” experiences are wastes of your time. You seek out challenges. You lead a high-impact lifestyle. When you set out to learn a new skill, you look for training from the best and brightest in that field. If such training is not available, you hunker down and focus until you’ve figured it out yourself. Either way, “slow and steady” progress is not what you’re after. The middle of the pack is not where you belong.
The same intensity that fuels your drive and focus also feeds a relentless inner critic. One that ceaselessly pushes you to raise the bar. People around you may be intimidated by your pursuit of perfection, but it’s mostly focused inwardly. You are your own harshest critic. For you, the Flow State offers a rare escape from the relentless tallying and scoring of yourself against your own ideal goals and past performance. When you find activities that allow this blissful calm and relief, you make them a priority in your life.
Flow Hacks: Hard chargers gravitate towards adventure sports. Skiing, snowboarding, surfing, skydiving, mountain biking, MMA, rock climbing, racing, and paintball all deliver the intensity you seek. You favor non-traditional, off-the-beaten path travel. You’re less interested in itineraries than you are in cultural immersion. In terms of substance use, you’re drawn towards stimulants, intoxicants, and euphoriants that alternately accentuate and attenuate your RPM.
Special Caution: Your insatiable thirst for intensity coupled with your persistent need to silence your inner critic makes you more willing to take risks than many of your peers. This trait, harnessed positively, can fuel a “life as a daring adventure” — rich with travel and fun and new experiences. But it can also lead to reckless behavior with substance use, sex, adrenaline sports, and other areas.
Pro-Tip: As a Hard Charger seeking flow, you may lose sight of the tradeoff between risk and reward. Make sure you always stay on the recoverable end of that equation. Rather than pursuing bigger and faster, try going deeper. Slow down. Take time to develop discipline and to truly understand all your pursuits have to offer. It’s typically a lot more than thrills. Develop skills instead of seeking challenges. If you’re already hucking off 20 foot cliffs on Alpine skis, try a different approach, like telemark skiing. If you’re surfing big waves, try stand up paddle boarding. If you’re a hard partying clubgoer, you might benefit from mindfulness training.
Once you’ve mastered the mechanics of reverse-engineering your Flow states, you’ll realize that you have a lot more options available to you. You’ll be able to derive the rewards without the risks!
Studies have shown that flow can be found even more frequently when working with a group of people. Group flow amongst friends is not only common, but encouraged to take your flow state to new levels. Do you have friends who share a similar worldview? Have them take the Flow Profile, as well, so you can compare notes and better understand how to encourage one another into finding your peak performance in an expanding flow state.
Looking for more Flow? Flow Fundamentals is a 6-week self-paced online training program that gives you specific direction for finding more Flow in your life. Updated for 2019, Flow Fundamentals now includes over 30 new videos, a fully interactive app, wearables integration, automated calendar reminders and a social community!
If you'd like to dive deeper than Flow Fundamentals and explore one of our advanced courses, book a call with us here and we'll see where you're at and explore how we can help you.
