Going with the flow is about learning to become comfortable with uncertainty, and learning how to exploit the potential hidden within it, both to feel better in the present and to achieve more success in the future.
Uncertainty is where things happen.
It is where the opportunities – for success, for happiness, for really living – are waiting.
The 2 foundations to embracing uncertainty are acceptance and flexibility.
As the psychologist Dorothy Rowe put it so elegantly:
"The only way to cope with all this uncertainty is to accept that it is so."
Professor Saras Sarasvathy, commenting on her findings in an indepth study of 45 successful entrepreneurs noted that the most valuable skill of a successful entrepreneur:
“...isn’t vision or passion or a steadfast insistence on destroying every barrier between yourself and some prize...."
Rather, it’s flexibility and the capacity to:
"Adopt an unconventional approach to learning: an improvisational flexibility not merely about which route to take towards some predetermined objective, but also a willingness to change the destination itself."
A practical business example of going with the flow.
A practical business example of going with the flow was the late, but largely now forgotten, businessman Henry Singleton. He was one of the most successful businessmen ever - and highly rated by Warren Buffet [amongst others]. He had a 25 year track record of 18% growth year on year for each of those years!
Commenting on goals and flexibility Singleton said:
“I know a lot of people have very strong and definite plans that they’ve worked out on all kinds of things, but we’re subject to a tremendous number of outside influences and the vast majority of them cannot be predicted.
So my idea is to stay flexible. My only plan is to keep coming to work. … I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan ahead way into the future."
The
Taoist practise of Wu Wei is about "doing without doing" or living your
life in alignment with the flow of life - quite literally going with
the flow.
This becomes possible when we accept that:
“Everything in life has its own flow, its own pace and speed.
If
we can tune into and align ourselves with it, we can achieve without
undue exertion and enjoy effortless ease in all that we do. We find that
we instinctively know what to do and when to do it.
What Wu Wei means in practice
Doing without doing:
This belief causes us to create in reverse
We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a
result of what we do, by the actions that we take.
But we do not understand the power of our
energy. As a result of this we so often end up "chasing our tails" to
make up for the impacts of our unintentional negative energy.
Most of our actions are out of fear, worry or doubt
The issue that we all face is that we are obsessed with doing, and that inevitably involves some form of struggle.
Those of us from a western influenced background are culturally conditioned to an action orientation, and thus we automatically place a great value on activity.
Unfortunately, what we don't understand is that we are creating in a “reverse” fashion.
It is not your action alone that makes things happen, it is also your energy state
It took me countless years to understand this dynamic of going with the flow! Years and years of
working so hard, striving so hard… always pushing, pushing… yet the
harder I pushed the further away seemed to be the results that I sought.
Eventually I came to understand
that I needed to reduce my actions and increase my focus on managing my
energetic state until I could feel the positive energy beginning to
move within me. In contrast to my repeated efforts over so many years,
this was not an energy based on doubt, fear, anxiety, worry or need. I
learned to apply the following truth:
If you focus on the
energy - the feeling - of what you do want instead of what you don't
want, you will know when it is time to take action, and what action to
take. This is the balance of being and doing
And when you do, it will be effortless. Doors open and it will seem as if the entire universe is on your side.
I
once described a personal experience of this as like having a big red
carpet unrolling in front of me and all I had to do was keep moving fast
enough to keep up with it!
What I have learned the hard way over
many, many years, and without doubt or reservation, is that we need to
use the leverage of energy - the same energy that creates everything in
the universe – The Energy Of Life.
You may have noticed that some people seem to lead a “charmed life” or have “the Midas touch”. It can appear as though they have an advantage over everyone else.
At
the other end of the spectrum there are so many people who strive so
hard and yet achieve so little for all their effort. This may not seem
fair but in all of my lived and observed experience of life that really
does seem to be how The Energy Of Life works.
That doesn't seem fair does it? But all the evidence seems to suggest to me that's the way the universe works.
We
are culturally conditioned and brought up to believe that there is “no
gain without pain” and whilst there is a truth in that, it is not the
whole picture.
What matters is the energetic state applied to all that effort.
Actions are necessary, but they aren't the only component of the creation process
Actions
alone cannot be used effectively to initiate results, because
initiation is the function of your inner energetic state of being, then
follows the thought, and then the action.
So the creation of
anything we apply ourselves to is first through our energetic state and secondly the accompanying action.
We live
in an energetic universe held together in The Energy Of Life and it is
by the exercising and management of our energetic state, by going with the flow, that we
harmonise and attract experiences to ourselves.
So before you act or do anything, check in with yourself, and ask: “what is my energy state?”
What is the simplest way to tell? You can tell by how you feel. Your feelings show you your vibration/energy state.
How you feel - your energetic state - determines what you attract, and the accompanying action seals the deal
When you do it this way you will find that The Energy Of Life will provide you with a different set of circumstances for you that requires much less action.
Further Reading: Trying Too Hard
Next Article: The Stockdale Paradox - How To Deal With The Attrition Factor
Return from "Going With The Flow" to: Walking The Talk
Or to: Renewing Your Mind
LATEST ARTICLES
How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?
We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…
The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!
Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…
Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent
This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call!
Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"…
The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness
How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…
How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now
So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…
Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks
Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…
How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips
The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…
Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes
Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…
Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life
Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…
Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line
In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…
The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!
To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…
The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin
Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…
The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win
The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…
Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed
It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…
The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent
What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…
Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen
Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…
5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life
The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…
Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist
Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…
Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival
How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…
Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy
How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…
The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled
Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…
How To Benefit From the Unseen Margins - 5 Key Tips For Success
These Unseen Margins Can Have A Very Dramatic Impact On Your Life. To understand how to benefit from the unseen margins we need to start by understanding what they are and where we find them. In this…
The Art Of Thinking Clearly - How To Do More Than Just Survive And Reproduce
3 Key Tips The art of thinking clearly starts with the sobering realisation that our brains are designed to achieve two things: Survival and Reproduction! 98% of our thinking is unconscious, automatic…
Algorithms to Live By - 5 Useful Rules Of Thumb
5 Useful Heuristics From Algorithms To Live By The thesis of the book "Algorithms to Live By" is that algorithms developed for computers can be used by people in everyday life in a wide range of situa…
Finding Signal In The Noise - How To Avoid The Noise Bottleneck
The Art Of Being Wise Is The Art Of Knowing What To Overlook. We are blessed and cursed to live in the digital age. We have access to more information than we can possibly handle yet we struggle to fi…
The Checklist Manifesto - Your Personal Safety Net
A Checklist Is A Safety Net That Encourages Better Results And Prevents Avoidable Mistakes. The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correc…
How Not To Be Stupid - 4 Key Tips
How To Avoid The 7 Causes Of Everyday Stupidity. We are all capable of everyday stupidity as we undertake routine tasks in our business and working lives and also in our personal lives. This is not ab…
Beginners Mind And The Voice Of Experience
Only The Experts Survived Evolution.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." These are the famous words of Shunryu Suzuki in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Min…
The Art Of Being Alone Is A Skill
Let's Make Today A Good Day. You may not have chosen the condition of being alone, and it may have been imposed upon you by circumstances beyond your control, but your response to the situation is wit…
Intuition & Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Calling Here?
How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? We all struggle with these inner voices…