Hey, hi, hello! I hope you’re reading this in a cozy sweater with a pumpkin spice latte or on a comfy chair in your house because we’re going to dig into some feelings in this issue. Don’t worry. We’ll get through it together.
Let’s start with some basics. How is everyone doing lately? Feeling okay? Just okay? Creatively stuck? Or just life-stuck in general? I’ll say yes to all of these and more. Who isn’t feeling that hazy feeling of malaise? We’re 18 months into a global pandemic. The hedonic treadmill is running and we’re doing the splits across the speeding belt trying to catch our collective breath. For the past year and a half, we’ve been forced to really look at our lives more deeply, and possibly for the first time we’re truly asking ourselves, “what is the meaning of all of this?” It’s exhausting.
According to behavioral psychologist Adam Grant, this general blah feeling could be described as languishing. This lack of energy and stagnation can feel paralyzing. The monotony of everyday life, waiting for something to happen, can start to feel heavy. Groundhog’s Day is not just a cute movie but a very real situation.
There’s good news in all of this. Grant says the best way to get out of languishing is to get into a flow. Flow—as defined by positive psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura—is the state of being totally immersed in an activity. The activity gets you so out of your head and in the moment that time seems to stop.
You start to gain motivation, a sense of clarity, happiness, and general wellbeing that lasts beyond the activity. A night of binge-watching Downton Abbey may provide the same happiness and escapism that getting into flow seems to do, but that’s where binging stops. (By the way, I’m definitely rewatching right now and it’s fantastic). Flow takes you beyond the instant gratification of relaxing and passively consuming content—and throws you into a deeper state of awareness.
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… the best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
While getting into a state of flow sounds expensive and reserved for the greatest meditators of our time, it’s actually achievable by anyone. Yes, even us languishers. Grant found his flow playing Mario Kart. I found mine by making videos.
TikTok Flow
I’ve known about TikTok for as long as it’s been in the zeitgeist, but only tangentially through Instagram. I kept my distance on purpose. Keeping up with another social media channel wasn’t all that appealing, and I got my sneak peek through another social channel so I could still feel part of the conversation.
So it came as a complete shock that I found my fingers creating an account and exploring the app last weekend in the midst of a particularly uneventful Saturday morning. I’d like to think I finally looked my languishing in the eye and declared, “not today!” and immediately find the clearest path to moving forward through producing 15-second videos of my sleepy dog and Halloween candy. But it wasn’t so much future-thinking that drove me to action. It was the complete and unapologetic presence of creating something.
Without the anticipation of likes or views or validation, I buried myself in the project of picking music and filters and video transitions that would take what I envisioned in my mind and put it into a visual medium existing outside of myself. It only took less than an hour, but the whole experience felt good and set up the rest of my day on an optimistic trajectory. It’s not magic, but it sure felt like it.
What gets you into flow?
According to Headspace, getting into flow requires you to be immersed in a project that you enjoy doing, that’s slightly challenging, and that you have a bit of skill in. I don’t play the guitar so frustration would set in before flow. But I’m no stranger to creating fun videos for family and friends.
TikTok found me suspended above the creative abyss at a time when I needed it most. I didn’t see it as another marketing tool or way to gain followers or accreditation in the great halls of the internet. My career aspirations don’t hinge on my ability to create viral videos on social media. The pressure to perform isn’t the driving catalyst behind the creation. Creating these videos was as innocuous as writing in a journal or playing a video game. The videos served no other purpose than to create something from nothing.
So what do you do to get into flow? Bake a cake? Play the guitar? Tend to your garden? Leave a comment and let me know! I’d love to share your examples in the next newsletter. And feel free to send this article to anyone you know who might be interested in sharing their flow-state activities.
What I’m consuming this week:
Marketing:
How behavioral science can boost your engagement rates - Lenny’s Newsletter
How To Overcome Feelings Of Unworthiness & Create Entrepreneurial Freedom - Amy Porterfield podcast
Psychology:
What it means to be in a flow state - Headspace blog
How to stop languishing and start finding flow - Adam Grant TED Talk
The Ten-Year Plan with Debbie Millman - Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel
Finance:
How to Make Expensive Purchases: Spending Money on Yourself (Minus the Guilt) - Angelica Leicht for the blog I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi
Options Trading for Beginners - Rose Han
Thanks for this lovely newsletter, Christine! I've also been working on getting into a flow, and I really appreciate the sentiment that flow doesn't have to be a hard set schedule of meditation for 30 minutes a day -- it can be a small creative step that takes you out of the monotony for a while. I've been trying to learn to draw to fill the same kind of creative niche in my life.