In The Flow Coaching

Equinox Gym has 18 locations in New York City, and I have an all-access pass, which means I can go to any of them. This offers fantastic variety for mixing up my workouts but also means that planning my workouts each week can become a logistical nightmare.

In addition to choosing between my eight or nine regular classes, I have to factor in whether one of my favorite instructors is teaching, travel time to the gym, proximity to a business meeting and whether there are two classes I can take back-to-back — the permutations are mind-boggling. On days that my brain is overloaded, I have been known to waffle over the possibilities until I have no choice but to scramble to the last available class of the day!

This is a pretty typical example, I think, of how our options in the information age have multiplied exponentially. More choice means more decisions: Who and when to marry, when or if to have children, whether to take the overseas job promotion, rent or buy, Mac or PC, sparkling or tap – the sheer volume of decisions we face can be overwhelming, to the point that we can’t decide at all.

Have you heard of the famous jam study? In The Art of Choosing, Columbia University professor Sheena Iyengar tells about the experiment she and her research assistants carried out at a local San Francisco supermarket. Posing as reps for Wilkin & Sons, they set up a table where they presented various jams for sampling. Periodically during the day, they switched between offering 24 flavors and six flavors; everyone who stopped by the table was given a $1 coupon.

Now, this wouldn’t be the ‘famous jam study’ if the results had turned out as expected. And in fact, more of the people who had seen the small assortment — 30% — decided to buy jam. Only 3% of those who saw the larger assortment did. Interesting: even with something as basic as jam, people are more likely to buy when there are fewer choices.

Of course, not making a choice is also a decision. But decision by default rarely produces meaningful satisfaction. So, gym quandaries aside, here’s my cheat sheet for making decisions more quickly and confidently:

Determine what’s important to YOU. Too often, we try to make a decision without first getting clear on what we actually want. You may know very little about camera technology and still find yourself standing in front of the store display comparing megapixels, optical zoom, vibration reduction and countless other features that you didn’t even know existed. That’s backwards. First, determine what criteria are important to you (not the manufacturer, not the salesperson), and stop evaluating the ones that aren’t.

Decide and commit fully. Olympic fencer Jason Rogers says: “Indecision weakens your skills. Better to do the wrong thing with 100 percent of your effort than the right thing with 50 percent.” How often do you play it safe rather than going all out? Strong conviction in your decision can very well compensate for any flaws in your reasoning. While a habit of tentative execution — though it may not get you poked in the eye with a saber — will steadily gnaw away at your confidence. As Byron Katie says: “When we try to be safe, we live our lives being very, very careful; and we wind up having no lives.”

Factor in human nature. The collapse of the financial markets in recent years demonstrated, on a large scale, the human propensity to take greater risk to avoid loss than to achieve gain. Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University, was curious to see if she could trace the roots of our irrational economic behavior and created an experiment in which she taught monkeys to use money and engage in marketplace trading. Turns out, monkeys also demonstrate loss aversion, just like humans. It’s in our genes!

Elsewhere, humans are consistently inaccurate in their assessment of perceived vs. actual risk. As security technologist Bruce Schneier asserts: “People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks. They worry more about earthquakes than they do about slipping on the bathroom floor, even though the latter kills far more people than the former. Similarly, terrorism causes far more anxiety than common street crime, even though the latter claims many more lives.

The take-home message: Knowing how our evolutionary tendencies can trip us up, we can compensate and consciously make smarter, more rewarding choices.

Make decisions from where you want to be. Consider this: Your best thinking got you where you are now. So if you want to improve an area of your life, you need to make different decisions. To start thinking like the person you want to be, adopt a role model (or two) — someone whose achievements or behavior you admire. When you’re feeling stymied, ask yourself: “What would [my role model] do?”

Make decisions quickly. Face it, you will never have complete information before making a decision. Three things that can make it easier to take the plunge: First, it’s easier to change the direction of a boat that’s already moving – the sooner you take action, the sooner you can course-correct. Second, though no-one enjoys making mistakes, that is where the most valuable learning is. The sooner you screw up, the sooner you know what doesn’t work.

Third, in his TED talk on what really makes us happy, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains how, thanks to our “psychological immune system,” we overestimate the effect that events – positive or negative — will have on us. It stands to reason, the consequences of our decisions won’t affect us as long or as much as we think.

The bottom line? Successful people make more decisions.

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Imagination is like a muscle: if we exercise it, it will grow more powerful and agile. Being imaginative, however, is not just about being artistic or creative – it’s having the ability to see alternative possibilities beyond the current “reality” or what’s immediately apparent.

Actually, we all already have pretty lively imaginations. How often do we tell ourselves, or allow someone to convince us, that something is not possible? There’s no lack of creativity, it seems, when it comes to making excuses why we can’t do something.

No question, it’s difficult to resist years of conditioning, peer pressure and our immediate environment. Studies show that people’s bodies deteriorate as they get older not so much because of actual loss of capability but because they see their peers aging and complaining about their aches and pains.

Some people, however, are able to imagine a dramatic alternative. Take Sister Madonna Buder, for example. A 78-year-old Catholic nun, she has competed in 37 marathons, 300 triathlons and 31 Ironman Triathlons, all after the age of 50. Apparently, she didn’t get the “you’re too old to do that” memo.

So, how do you develop your imagination? By feeding your mind as regularly as you do your body. Just as advances in biotech and agriculture have provided us with a greater range of nutrition options – both natural and artificial – thanks to the Internet, we also have unprecedented access to information and opinions, both negative and positive. Used judiciously, you can find a wealth of material to fuel your goals and expand your belief of what’s possible.

Here are three ways to start:
1.     Activate your antenna. Be on the lookout for role models and examples for what’s possible. Reading a magazine, I ran across an ad for Keen shoes featuring Jessie Stone, a medical doctor who went to Africa to participate in an extreme kayaking competition; shocked by the malaria outbreaks she saw there, she now lives in Uganda and splits her time between kayak training and teaching malaria prevention. That led me to the Hybrid Lives community spotlighting dozens of people pursuing their dreams with inspiring and unconventional lives. Hey, you can join too.

2.     Watch what you put in your mind. At the same time, be vigilant about your information intake. Just like eating junk food, the effects of regular gossip sessions with friends or constant negativity will insidiously seep into your consciousness and contribute to – how far I can take this analogy? – flabby energy. (Tell me that watching the catty back-biting on some of those reality TV shows doesn’t feel pretty much the same as scarfing down a bag of Cheetos.)

3.     Stray from the beaten path. Most of us have a prescribed routine for what we eat, wear, read and watch. Why not develop the habit of exposing yourself to new influences on a regular basis: buy a magazine you’ve never read before, check out a provocative lecture at your local museum or author reading at the local book store, download TED talks by the most brilliant and innovative people in the world, branch out from your usual movie genre or even just take a different route to work. The only adventure sport I practice these days is jumping on the subway as the doors are closing but I pore over National Geographic Adventure magazine’s annual Best Trips list and start dreaming about the vast possibilities for exotic travel.

Creating an exceptional life starts with an active imagination: just as you nourish your body on a daily basis, feed your mind a steady diet of new ideas and inspiration, and you’ll learn to think differently – and bigger.

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“Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer

Here, in New York, where there’s a bravado culture — especially among lawyers and investment bankers — of who can survive on the least sleep, I’ve always felt a bit wimpy because I’ve always made sleep a priority and have even been known to take naps mid-afternoon. (Apparently some Tokyo-ites feel the same way.)

But now with a rash of articles about the dangers of sleep deprivation, I feel smugly vindicated.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends eight hours of sleep and if you’re getting less than that on a regular basis it will affect your:

1) physical health (digestive disorders, high blood pressure, weakened immune systems, weight gain)

2) mental functioning (ability to concentrate, multitask, pay attention, retain information, problem-solve, react quickly, and make good judgments) and, ultimately,

3) quality of life (you’re cranky, irritable, hyper-sensitive)

From a work standpoint, sleep deprivation threatens our ability to focus, the key element necessary to get into the flow. As  Ariana Huffington notes in her sleep challenge, “Work decisions, relationship challenges, any life situation that requires you to know your own mind — they all require the judgment, problem-solving and creativity that only a rested brain is capable of and are all handled best when you bring to them the creativity and judgment that are enhanced by sleep.”

If you constantly push yourself to get by on less you will never know what that peak performance — or flow state — feels like.

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Too old, too young, too stressed, not enough time, not enough space, not enough energy, too cold, too hot, too early, too late…we are incredibly resourceful in coming up with reasons why it’s never quite the right time to change the status quo. The fact is, there will always be some condition that is less than ideal.

Watch this Nike ad with Matt Scott, and then let me ask you: “What’s your excuse?”

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Doesn’t it seem as if the more the pace of modern life increases, the more we scramble to keep things under control?

In the movie Click, Adam Sandler’s character was given a universal remote control that allowed him to pause, rewind and fast-forward to manipulate the events of his life. But although we may indulge in similar wishful thinking, do we really want to be totally in charge of everything – the weather, the traffic, what our colleagues, friends and family wear, say and do? I mean, aren’t we already kind of busy as it is?!

What We Really Want

Instead of being in control in actuality, I think what we really want is simply the sense of exercising control. This is one reason why being in the “flow” — that exhilarating state of being totally immersed in an activity — is so satisfying: in the flow, we experience a heightened sense of personal control.

Take rock climbers, for example. Rather than fret about the very real physical threats over which they have no control — a sudden storm, avalanche or drop in temperature – they focus on what they can control: their discipline, preparation and skill, and finding the next hand hold. Although the final outcome will always be uncertain and out of their actual control, they derive satisfaction from knowing they are equipped to handle whatever comes up and thus influence the outcome.

The One Thing You Can Always Control

The modern workplace, with its constant stream of distractions, changing strategies and unpredictable demands, can create a sense of powerlessness that is frustrating and de-motivating. Amid all the external variables, however, there is one thing over which you, and only you, have absolute and total control: where you focus your attention.

So when your boss comes in with yet another urgent priority, the client calls for the twentieth time with a question about the agreement, or your colleague needs help putting out a fire that you warned him about, you can sit there seething and sighing in annoyance at the injustice of it all – or you can take control and decide where to put your focus. (Hint: taking a deep breath is a good start.)

Setting an intention (“I am going to stay calm”) and asking questions are a powerful way to do this – “What’s the first thing I need to do?” or “How can I make a game out of this?” or “Will this bother me in ten months?”

Simply by learning how to reframe even the most chaotic situation, you’ll find that feeling “in control” is reliant less on things going just as you planned, and more on your ability to determine where you focus your attention.

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