"Systems of Thought" - Installment 3
Flow
“We are hardwired to exceed our limitations and fulfill our potential and doing anything less is bad for us.”
Steven Kotler
If you have been following along with my posts, I’ve encouraged you to start the season with a Growth Mindset. Put Stretch Goals into a timeline and create a SMART Goal System for your daily objectives in order to achieve ultimate productivity. If you’ve tried to put the advice into action, you should have a month of practice to see how it feels and to have noticed positive change. You may have felt a new confidence and effortlessness in your practices and games. This feeling people have is called “being in the zone.” Psychology has studied this phenomenon since the 70’s and gave it a term. It’s called “Flow State”, and it’s an achievable state of mind that you can achieve day.
First, let me tell you the history of Flow State. In the 70’s a Hungarian Psychologist, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (let’s call him MC in this post) did approximately a ten year study at the University of Chicago on people with different careers and hobbies. He asked them ring a pager every time they felt their best during the day. These people were athletes, musicians, chess players, mothers, auto mechanics, and construction workers. They found that when people were doing tasks of their choosing (autonomy) and/or a task little bit greater than their skill level (challenge) they lost themselves in the job, sport, or skill they were working on. The task itself became the reward rather than the result of the task. Participants, continually used terms like “flowy”, “easy”, and “flowed together” and MC settled on calling the term “Flow”.
The core characteristics of Flow:
complete concentration
intersection of action and awareness
the disappearance of sense of self
feeling control of the task,
purposeful experience
loss of time.
If you speak to any expert in a certain field when they describe their performance, they tend to list some of these characteristics.
Now lets overlap this into goaltending…
For me, I see many of these characteristics in myself when I play my best. I am completely absorbed in the moment. The loss of time is the most common for me. Plays seems to unfold in slow motion, yet the periods seem like they fly by. Insecurity in the outcome of the game is non-existent and I feel like I control the pace. It’s a great feeling and if you’ve ever felt this way before, you know it.
But now you may be asking, “why can’t I feel like this every game?”
You can! When you play, your goal should be to achieve Flow; not the win/loss or hitting a stat, but being in a state of mind that you can operate at your most efficient. And when you're there, that is when you will have the most enjoyment.
It’s important to remember “Flow follows Focus”. Exceeding your potential requires motivation to get you into the game and learning to help you to continue to play. Creativity is how you steer and adapt, and Flow is how you can turbo boost the results beyond what thought was possible. So how can a goaltender find flow on a consistent basis? Similar to our goal setting, you must create a system that nurtures this state of mind. My personal “Flow Triggers” are:
Mobility/Activation Routine
Cold Shower/Exposure (2-3 minutes)
Visualization
Mindful Breath work (Box Breathing or Hypoventilation)
Clear Goals
Being disciplined with these triggers will allow you to get into flow state more regularly… thus making it habit. Elite goaltending isn’t about the biggest and strongest athlete, but the goalie who can process patterns faster than everyone else. Being in a state of mind where decision making is fluid and self consciousness is eliminated reduces hesitation when big moments come. Instead of being the goalie who get’s tight and stressed when the big games are played, you can be the one that steps on gas and leads the way.
To Summarize, I listed my Flow Triggers for game day above. Flow isn’t just about game day but making it about your daily routine so you can get the maximum enjoyment out of each moment. To create momentum for Flow you can:
Make a Schedule
Make a Daily Checklist, Do the hardest task first
Quick working when you are most excited, (keeps you excited for the next day)
Anticipate Frustration (Grit, perseverance, willpower are non negotiable)
Hard Work = Creativity
Remember, someone is always chasing you (motivation)
Peak performance is a checklist. It’s the fortitude to get up everyday and complete every goal on that checklist, and repeat! This months suggested reading: The Art of Impossible - by Steven Kotler
-JP