Several years before I ended my corporate career, I was in a meeting listening to our department VP talk about the book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is “a state of consciousness that makes an experience genuinely satisfying…people experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.” I’m sure most of you have heard the expression (especially from athletes), “I’m in the zone.” This is flow. My VP was connecting it to the Human Resources Dept. creating a higher level of work engagement for our employees. I connected to NOT FEELING IT!
And I actually had felt it during my tenure there, particularly in my early HR years. Coming to Human Resources felt like I’d finally found my work home. I now know that in each of the positions I held(recruiter, soft skills trainer, management development manager), I was gathering information and honing my skill level in what would fully and ultimately represent flow for me: coaching clients on my terms. Remember: Nothing’s wasted!
Serving people through my gift of ‘free-your-mind/get your life’ coaching…YES. Corporate strategy and processes…NO!
Flow is in my head because I experience it often now, working with clients. And I was TOTALLY in my Flow Zone during my retreat(finding creative ways to provide a wonderful coaching experience is a flow requirement for me). I’m doing the current Oprah/Deepak meditation series, Hope In Uncertain Times and in Day 8, Oprah mentions flow:
“I believe hope flourishes when you are In. The. Flow. I remember a photo I pulled from O Magazine of a woman gliding through water. It was such a striking image of freedom and possibility, I put it on my vision board. Some time later after a swimming lesson, I passed by my vision board and had an AHA moment. I’d become that woman gliding through the water. For years, I’d been a challenged swimmer, afraid of the water…fighting it. I believe that all I needed to learn was to move with the flowwww…literally. This is one of the great metaphors of life.
Move with the flow. Don’t fight the current. RESIST NOTHING. Let life carry you. Don’t try to carry it.
Deepak tells us, if you get this idea…that this moment, is the only moment you have…then you live in the present and you MOVE WITH THE FLOW of that. The point of arrival is NOW. So many of us look to the future for a moment of happiness or contentment. I will be happy when… But when we get there, we don’t recognize it because we are not present for IT. And That’s how many people lose hope. They miss the moment!”
Are you in your flow? Or are you in a trickle? A drought? Are you paying attention to what’s tickling OR prickling your consciousness? Are you swimming or drowning? I fought the messages for a long time because they didn’t seem ‘right’. I prayed, begged, and pleaded with God to let me be happy on the traditional track to retirement. Clearly, he wasn’t hearing THAT! Ohhhh the misery that only got worse. Thankfully, though, even in the midst of what had become work hell, I was grateful and remained enough ‘in the moment’ to not miss the joys of my very blessed life. I didn’t lose all hope.
I came to the realization, that the company wasn’t my issue. The issue was my ignoring that a life chapter had ended. I had received what I came to learn and it was time to move on. Time to create my new Flow. So I did. Helping you find YOUR Flow is MY Flow!
If work is NOT your happy place, then you’ll want to check out my upcoming online course, How To Get The Work You Love.
It’s a self-study that shows you how to:
- determine what work represents for you: Your passion and contribution in the world OR a great income and flexibility to live your passion outside of work.
- create an action plan(based on your response to above) that gets you the work-life you crave
- FLOW!!!
Don’t want to wait? Contact me now…cReneCoach.com
P.S. There are still a few spots left for Dancing in the Dark + Coaching. You really don’t want to miss this! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dancing-in-the-dark-coaching-tickets-33178980223