Have you ever been involved in an activity where you lose track of time? Maybe you were writing a great story or even playing a video game. Your mind was completely engaged in the task at hand. This kind of focused energy is often referred to as flow. It’s a term created by Hungarian psychology professor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which refers to “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.” To achieve flow requires complete engagement.
In singing the word flow is also referred to in terms of breath flow. The goal is to create a steady stream of air without tension or obstruction so the vocal chords can vibrate freely. In order to do so you must coordinate many different parts of the body. You must relax some muscles while fully engaging others. The result is the feeling of having an open, malleable instrument where the breath flows easily.
If you are an entrepreneur, you know there are many pieces to running a business that need to be coordinated as well. You are trying to refine your services or products while learning about social media. You are trying to balance your books while at the same time building your network. You are marketing yourself while keeping up with new training. It is a lot of work. It is easy to get overwhelmed, but you can get to a place where you find your groove. However, you are going to need to hustle.
No one ever became a great singer by sitting around thinking about breath support. No, you have to physically get up, show up and practice, practice, practice. It is the same when you are trying to grow your business. You cannot think yourself through work, you must DO the work. In the beginning it can take a great deal of effort and concentration to find your rhythm, but after a while things will start to flow. It is precisely in the DOING that the flow shows up.
There will be times when you wish you could achieve flow simply through osmosis, but nothing is as rewarding as having ownership of your efforts. When you push yourself through your own inertia to achieve great results no one can take that experience away from you. You then have the ability to create that experience again and again. Just like the confident singer who knows they will nail the high note every time because they have practiced and practiced, you will soar in your business because you have hustled to find your flow.
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