Football and Flow State
“Do your job” is the well-known mantra of Patriot’s Coach Bill Belichick. “Do your work for its own sake, not the reward” is the mantra of the yoga text, the Bhagavad Gita. The similarity is no accident.
“Do your job” requires you to overwhelm doubt with a sustained concentration on the task at hand. “Do your job” is a single-minded focus that leaves no energy for dwelling on whether you are winning or losing. “Do your job” means to focus exclusively on what you are doing now and nothing else. Essentially, “do your job” is shorthand for the ancient wisdom of yoga.
“Do your job,” is advised by both Belichick and the Bhagavad Gita. It turns out single-minded focus is a vital part of the formula for entering what today we call a Flow State.
Flow by urgency
Some people use high-pressure to hack into a flow state.
With forty-two fourth-quarter comebacks, Tom Brady is the master of “Flow by Urgency.”
While many other quarterbacks fail under high-pressure, Brady seems to use pressure to induce the level of focus needed to produce an optimal Flow State. In flow-by-urgency, there is no room for egocentric thought, no room for inner whining about “me” or “my predicament,” no room for distractions. Just focus on the job now.
Team flow
Brady is not alone in this. With Belichick’s coaching, the team appears to unite in focus on “doing the job” and turns it into a team-level flow experience.
Think what the Patriots have done.
In games where the Patriots were trailing in the 4th quarter, they used game pressure to redouble focus on doing their job, creating a flow state of optimal experience and performance. Forty-two times this produced a comeback win. Forty-two times the team that had the lead in the 4th quarter lost the game. What might they have been doing differently?
The biggest mistake coaches make is to coach the players to “Win the game,” rather than “Play the game.” This subtle distinction is the difference between optimal performance and choking.
Choking happens when the focus is on the outcome – the reward – instead of the job.
There are many Patriot comebacks we could cite here. But the most famous rally ever is Super Bowl 51 vs. Atlanta. The Patriots never wavered on doing their job, no matter how dire the situation was. But for Atlanta, once the game appeared to be theirs, the team began to relish their future victory. You could see it on the sidelines: the hugging, the high-fives, the smiles. There was still over one quarter left, but in their minds, they had already won. They were not “doing their job for its own sake” any longer; in their minds, they jumped to the reward: the Lombardi Trophy.
Two-headed choke-trap
When it was obvious the Patriots were closing in, Atlanta fell into the other side of the choke trap. Their minds shifted from 1) Dreaming of the reward to 2) The fear of losing the prize.
You could see the Falcons giving power to doubt with each Patriot score. I imagine Atlanta’s terrifying thoughts increased: “How could this be happening to us, to me?” “What are we doing wrong?” “Oh my God, we could actually lose!” “What is the score?” “How many points before they catch up?”
“Doubting” replaced “doing” for the rest of Atlanta’s game.
Reward is a flow killer.
Any reward, such as winning, getting a paycheck, retirement or reaching the end of an activity that you dread is a flow killer because it diverts attention away from what you are doing while you are doing it. Despite what our culture teaches, thoughts of rewards are not relevant in any single instant you are playing the game or doing your job or living your life. And where is your mind when you indulge in a fantasy of getting or losing rewards: a helpless, anxious state.
Flow-by-Urgency is a flow hack because it requires a specific set of circumstances to attain it: pressure. Ultimately, with training, flow can arise naturally in every aspect of your life without pressure or other hacks.
Athletes seek flow states for optimal performance but continuously break flow by their faulty thinking.
Serious athletes try combination after combination of food, sleep, meditation, various training regimes and include any other thing that worked at least once. Each new blend is like entering a password and hoping it will induce flow. (“Hoping” itself is a flow killer!) Following this strategy, flow is inconsistent; it seems accidental.
There are plenty of other distractions and hazards on the flow path. I will offer more hacks in our upcoming Yoga Teacher Training on the island of Jamestown, Rhode Island.
Autotelic Experience
A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future. – Albert Einstein
What is the password to enter flow? It is a narrow path that foremost relies on your ability to stay focused on precisely -and nothing more- than what you are doing. When you’re doing your activity for its own sake, it is called autotelic. When you are in an autotelic state, enjoyment or satisfaction comes from the activity itself, in real time.
Autotelic is an aspect of flow. It is a living reward. You are doing your life for its own sake.
This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. – Alan Wilson Watts
Flow offers a lifetime of happiness (and peak performance). And when your life gets crazy or scary, flow can help you keep your focus. Everyday flow is a state of continued enjoyment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WRITTEN BY PHILIP URSO
Currently, Philip is enrolled in his 5th-semester of graduate classes at Harvard focusing on medical and psychological studies on anxiety, yoga, and mindfulness.
Philip studied for ten years with Baron Baptiste where he rose to co-facilitator. In 2009, he co-created Live Love Teach with Stacy Dockins and Deborah Williamson. Today, Live Love Teach, is owned and operated by Philip Urso and Renee Deslauriers. Live Love Teach is one of only a few Yoga Alliance-recognized Yoga Teacher Training schools to maintain a five-star rating with over one-hundred reviews from certified graduates. http://liveloveteach.com/
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