Flow state

Hello!

I hope you've had a good week.

A few years ago, we decided to leave the big city (London) for more space in the countryside and to be closer to family.

Being relatively rural, we've ended up with a few acres of land. Quite the change from a 3 bedroom flat. 

Every year, the farmer next door comes and makes hay. My kids then roll the bales together and then invite the children who live next door around to play tag. This involves sprinting around the top of the bales while they continue to roll around.

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Farmer James

I was chatting to the farmer (James) when he turned up yesterday. We had a good natter (largely about the weather, global warming and the impact it has on his dairy herd).

But he ended the conversation by telling me just how much he loves making hay.

He loves that hay making means long spells of sunny weather. He loves the process - the cutting, returning to do the turning and then returning again to bale.

He also loves how much joy our kids get from their games of tag. And how anxious their parents might be about the likelihood of a trip to a (very hot) A&E department.

Of all the things he does on the farm, it's the thing he's most likely to be doing when he loses track of time. The thing that's most likely to put a big smile on his face when he comes off the fields at the end of the day.

Work that gives him energy. Rather than draining it away.

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Finding your flow

We can all learn an important, simple lesson from James' haymaking.

If you've dropped into my Friday career advice sessions or dipped into the masterclasses available within my career Momentum ecosystem, you'll have heard me talk this through.

When people come to me as they're starting to think about their career plans, more often than not, they frame their options along industry lines (e.g, leaving consulting for financial services).

The first thing I encourage them to do - and you might have done this as part of my career stocktake exercise - is to work out what they're doing when they lose track of time.

When they're in a flow state.

We're all wired differently so this is very personal. For some people it can be crunching numbers. For others, it's collaborative meetings. Others need the thrill of landing a deal.

Activities that put us in a state of flow, tend to be things we enjoy and are naturally good at - "distinctive strengths". 

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Staying in state

 If you think about it that way, a successful career plan will see you in a role that puts you in a flow state as much as possible.

Simply put, what's required to do the job well is predominantly activities you enjoy doing and are more naturally adept at.

And if you do things you're great at and passionate about most of the time, you're more likely to be successful too.

In turn, there are 3 implications for your career planning:

1. Be honest. Your flow state might mean a different path to what you had in mind or what you feel people expect you to do.
2. Research. There will be roles / functions out there you didn't realise existed, but suit you perfectly.
3. Assess. During the process, you need to intimately understand what a "week in the life of" this job actually entails. How do the hours break down by activity type and is that balance going to bring the best out of you? At offer stage, if this still isn't totally clear, go spend more time with the organisation and fill in the blanks.

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It's all too easy for society, education and early careers to wire us towards being acceptably good at everything. To focus on our weaknesses and not our strengths (it's hard to forget the feedback sh*t sandwich)!

So I challenge you to imagine what work could be like and where your career could lead you, if you were always in your flow state. Always making hay like farmer James.

Have a great weekend. Best wishes,

Rich