Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Are You “In The Zone” Or Just Staying In Your Comfort Zone?




In the zone is the experience of flow, where an athlete, musician or other performer operates at a very high level, with heightened perceptions of the present, and a sense of almost effortless control and joy. This happens after getting out of your comfort zone and stretching yourself to meet a challenge that is at the upper end of your skill level. Is there risk in reaching higher? Sure there is. But there is also risk in stagnation.

We call it graceful, when an athlete, dancer or musician can execute complex physical maneuvers and make it all look so easy. But that grace is a result of rigorous and persistent practice, until the information needed for performance is encoded in the limbs or fingers themselves, and the brain has little to do except to experience the joy of movement and the emotional meaning of what is being communicated.

What keeps us from all becoming as graceful in our particular roles as we are capable of being? There are many skills that can enable us, and the lack of them can block us. I organize them into seven buckets, called the The 7 Dimensions of Wisdom. I use the acronym SOPPHIA (S-O-P-P-H-I-A), which means wisdom in Greek, to represent those seven dimensions. Let me focus right now on two of these seven: P for Presence and A for Assurance. Presence is the ability to be effectively in the present, not distracted by the past, future or other concurrent events. Assurance is the ability to endure and to persevere, even when everything says you can’t succeed.

You may have noticed this pattern in yourself when you engage in an activity regularly. I’ve observed it in myself when exercising or playing the flute. When you begin the activity, you feel distant from it and not quite in sync. This is a lack of presence or engagement. After this warm-up period, your breathing and body movements become smoother and more synchronized, and you become more present in the moment. The activity become enjoyable and you want to continue.

After a while you become tired and/or distracted, and you want to stop the activity. This is where Assurance comes in. Assurance is a belief in or commitment to something, which produces a sense of comfort during painful or challenging situations. This sense of comfort enables us to endure and to persevere through the pain. From my experience with performing music and exercising, if you persist beyond the tiredness and discomfort with an attitude that is both focused and relaxed, you reach a new level where you are energized and the activity again becomes enjoyable, and you feel able to continue almost indefinitely. This is getting out of your comfort zone and moving towards being in the zone.

The pattern that I’ve described after you get past being tired, is similar to what happens when someone is in a state of flow, or in the zone. The difference is that the “in the zone’ experience usually happens when the situation is more intense and the stakes are higher, such as in a live performance; particularly one that is very important, such as a championship game. This pattern exists not just in the performing arts and sports, but in many other kinds of activities, such as at work or in your personal life.

The only chance of getting to the point of flow or being in the zone, and the superior levels of performance that go with it, is to first get out of your comfort zone. It requires developing the discipline of being present, and the assurance needed to endure and to persevere through the pain and discomfort, to reach the joy and grace of superior performance.

What are your thoughts about comfort zone and being in the zone? Let me know at www.sopphia.com.

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