Arjun Khemani

In a past article, I wrote about something known as the flow state. To explain it in rather pretentious terms, a flow state is an intense, yet a passively relaxing state of mind where you have an extreme sense of clarity and you are able to do whatever it is you want to do with the highest level of focus on the work and therefore extreme fruitfulness of performing the action.

I also proposed a “profitable technique” called the 5 minute flow state in that article which was basically an observation made by myself where I noticed that if you spend the first five minutes of doing a task completely without any distractions and with a healthy intense state of mind, it is likely you would experience that flow state which we defined above even after those ideal first five minutes, hopefully till the end of your doing that action without any obstructions in the quality of the flow.

I discovered a really relatable and imposing analogue to this case while on a run today on the subject of the flow state.

I found out that running long distances is a really well-suited example on the topic. Maybe because I found it really relatable, but it makes the point!

The average runner (not in accordance with distance and pace but just the general category of runners) starts his/her run and is usually okay in the beginning. Then we pick up some momentum after a few short minutes and after a while, we just don’t feel like we’re “running”. Running as in a burden kind of a sense. It feels normally great to be “running”. This is the sweet spot, the flow state. Where your legs literally feel on auto-pilot and your mind is the part what’s actually running. Here’s why I also get really thoughtful and analytic on my runs. It becomes easier to see things clearly.

Running is just an example of the flow state in it’s work. But it works in all kinds of work. All you need to do is to find some healthy momentum at the beginning, eliminating all if any distractions and get intense and you’ll be transposed into what’ll seem like a whole ‘nother dimension later on.