Set Audacious Goals
Making what some folks call B.H.A.G.s, Big Hairy Audacious Goals can be critical for getting into the Flow state, actually forming these Flow habits AND doing what it takes to live a Flow life in general. For those of you who don’t know, audacious means “showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks”. This doesn’t mean that you have to aim to do something crazy, but it might mean that aim to do something other people think is crazy!
If you read through this whole thing so far, then I can confidently say that you are disciplined and have what it takes to achieve whatever audacious goal you choose. Not only that, but I am confident that if you’ve deeply learned and applied all the tools in the course (which might include reading all the recommended reading) that you will absolutely SMASH that goal, and quickly move on to another audacious goal that’s even bigger and even hairier.
Setting an audacious goal and ACTUALLY moving forward to pursue it is inherently risky, thus activating the Flow environment risk trigger. Risk focuses your attention giving you that norepinephrine boost.
Imagine the result of your audacious goal, imagine that you’ve achieved it and are now giving a speech explaining how it was done. Imagining the result of what you aim to do, and then working backwards from there will help you break your audacious goal into small manageable and actionable steps that you can chip away at every single day. This will give you a dopamine rush. There is no specific path or map for anyone’s big audacious goal and it’s important that you be able to adapt in whatever way so that you can achieve it. In other words, you’ll achieve your goal, but probably not how you think. This novelty will give you a nice flow of dopamine.
Audacious goals attract audacious friends and colleagues. If any goal is audacious enough, you’ll likely need help, whether that’s through a friend, mentor, someone you hire, or someone that you work with. This will invite serotonin into your life and give you access to social Flow triggers. Anandamide will play a role here too. Trading ideas with other people (I.E. Brain Storming) promotes lateral thinking and “AHA” moments. These moments will undoubtably be the most important in your pursuit of any audacious goal.
Finally, audacious goals will have you producing endorphins for sure. Like I said from the beginning, audacious goals mean risk, risk means pain. All types of risk, all types of pain. Physical, emotional, and social pain. Wait what? Emotional and Social Pain can cause the release of endorphins, not just physical pain? You heard that right! However, we all know that just because we might release endorphins when we’re upset, stressed or in pain, doesn’t mean we feel better. That means you will have to sprint your way into pain relief. Sprint your way, physically and figuratively, to the success of your audacious goal.
(Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079864/ + https://www.medicinenet.com/endorphins_natural_pain_and_stress_fighters/views.htm )
The last thing I’d like to add is that these big goals should be driving you, they should be giving you more energy than they take away! With the right audacious goal that you truly believe in, your brain WILL generate these chemicals and you WILL get more energy back than energy lost. If this isn’t happening, then you might have the wrong goal. Don’t do it for money, or material objects, this might give you a dopamine boost in the short run, but you’ll be left feeling unfulfilled in the long run. This “on the edge of Flow” state that we get ourselves into can also be called “Fulfillment”. Fulfillment is all about how you feel about yourself when you’re by yourself. When you’re doing something seemingly mundane like brushing your teeth or walking your dog, fulfillment is what bumps you into the Flow state and stops you from feeling down or de-motivated.
However, fulfillment, being on the edge of Flow, doesn’t completely prevent you from feeling down or de-motivated. Don’t get things twisted, fulfillment and Flow are not magical spells that turns life into a brisk walk on the beach.
