Day 1: 108 Days of Flow

This is the start of my third 108-day cycle. The focus of this 108 days is flow.

What is Flow?

That’s a good question! Normally I’d provide links to an article about flow but I think it’s been on my mind long enough to put it in my own language. I’ve been developing a system of setting and achieving goals for 10 years now. It’s gone through several different names and countless revisions (actually… I probably could count them). The current name is “flow to your dream”.

The idea is to create a big vision. Whatever big is for you. One year away, five years away, 500 years away… This vision provides fuel in the form of motivation along with a general direction to help with decision making. The idea of “flow” is to make moving towards your dream “effortless”.

Now… effortless can evoke feelings or ideas like laziness or doing things the easy way. That’s not the kind of effortless I’m talking about. I’m talking about the kind of effortlessness that comes from discipline, training… mastery. What always comes to mind for me is surfing (which I still haven’t tried!)

Professional surfers make it look easy. Effortless. Even though it looks easy we all know it took a lot of trial, error, failure, and practice to get there!

The other thing I like about the surfing analogy is that it begins with the simple things. Learning how to swim. Standing up on small waves. You’re always trying to find the right level of challenge for yourself. Finding that “sweet spot” of a challenge induces “flow states” (of mind).

So flow is a nice word. It combines that effortless feeling that comes with mastery along with that state of mind you’re in when you’re deeply engrossed in some activity. It could be running, writing, cleaning, different aspects of your job, playing a video game, playing the guitar…

Flowing to My Dream

Flow applied to day-to-day life means, to me, mastering all of the mundane things. Refining them to the point where they happen on autopilot. The way to go about doing this, for me, is creating habits, routines, systems, processes, triggers, etc.

What is a man but a collection of habits?

That’s what I’ll be working on. Right now I’m working on my morning routine. Currently, it is as follows:

Wake up
Drink water
Meditate
Make the bed
Journal
Make to-do list
Eat breakfast
Do the dishes

Over the course of the next 108 days (and perhaps the 108 days after this!), I’ll be expanding on these rituals. There will be afternoon rituals, bedtime rituals, exercise rituals, rituals for work, rituals for play, etc.

It may seem like having a bunch of systems like this would be confining, but the opposite is actually true. First, you start with systems, techniques, forms, styles. You refine them, you master them, you improve on them, you make them yours. Then you transcend them.