Getting in the Zone: Somewhere Between the Ears

     Hello there and thank you for joining me once again, or perhaps for your first time. I must start today off by saying thank you to everyone who has decided to spend any time here with me since I started this project a couple months ago. Yesterday, this blog reached its first modest mile stone, reaching and passing 1000 total views with audience members ranging from 20 countries. While this started as a way for me to give some order to my thoughts, you joining me and even engaging in the conversation has really kept me motivated, so thank you again. I truly appreciate your “presence”.

     Now then, as of late we've entered into this idea of applying the learning lens (See "Clumsiness and Climbing Castles") to the various levels of life. The previous post "An Inner Model Out There" made an attempt to shed light on the subjective nature of our perceptions. In essence, the first layer with which we have a relationship is with ourselves and in particular with something that I've come to call "ego" (for any students of psychology, this different from the idea of ego that Freud described, but not completely unrelated.) Today I would like to explore the effects of ego and how it is one of the primary obstacles in keeping us from acting precisely and seeing objectively. For anyone wondering why "precision" is important, I would ask him or her, if they were interested, in returning to the posts "Pondering the Particularities of Precision" and "Precisely: What I was Thinking".

     Since acting precisely is of special interest to us, considering “the zone” might provide us with more material to work with. First off, one may ask, what is the zone? Many people will know what I’m referring to, but let’s see if there’s a way to bring everyone’s awareness precisely to the point. I whole heartedly believe that everyone has experienced the zone at one point or another. Think about whatever activity you do best or even anything that you do well. If you have ever experienced a period of time where you are just completely in that activity, with no distractions, and whatever you’re doing just works…. That’s it.

      Most commonly the term is used by athletes, describing periods of time where they perform flawlessly, or at least as precisely as possible for a duration of time. While they are there, it’s as if nothing else exists outside the field of play. As observers, we just see a great performance. However, this is not just a state reserved for athletes.

     People can experience the zone while taking part in any other activity as well. When drawing, an artist may reach a point when they are completely focused on the work at hand. Thinking stops and the pencil or paint brush almost seems to be running on autopilot. It’s often from this state that great artists produce their best work. Reading is another great example. When one engages in a book so fully that it has transported them out of the room, they just may have entered the zone. In this setting, the experience can feel as if the reader is observing the actions of a story rather than looking at the words. It can be shocking if someone interrupts and brings them crashing back into the room, breaking their concentration. The zone could be explained via any activity from playing music, cooking, meditating, walking, cleaning up around the house or anything else that we do.

     Hopefully some of these examples give some context to the idea, but the underlying characteristic of the zone seems to be this; the mind is fully engaged in the activity, without being separated from it with “word thoughts” “picture thoughts” or other distractions. A great baseball player once said, “You can’t think and hit a baseball”. Being in the zone isn’t about thinking through the action, it’s about simply doing it. A batter has no time to think “yes, now swing.” The ball would have already passed. His awareness is simply in his hands, ready to act, and swings when it feels right. When giving a speech, the zone feels like just talking about the material, never allowing interfering thoughts to enter the picture. As soon as the thought, “there are a lot of people out there, I am in front of them” enters one’s mind, the person becomes one step removed from just talking about the material (and probably starts to get nervous). Any sort of “I am doing…” thought immediately separates one’s concentration from that which they are doing, and stops them from just acting, denying them access to the zone.

     This is important because only when people completely unite their awareness on what they are doing can they act as precisely as possible. Most people only do this for short periods of time, and generally only while they are performing a task with which they have much skill and practice. This is probably because they are very familiar with that activity. Unfortunately, even when doing activities we know well, there’s no easy way to just “get in the zone”.

     Generally speaking, people clearly prefer doing things precisely and nobody likes to act clumsily. So, the question must be raised, what keeps us from being in the zone all time? What is the obstacle that keeps us from acting as precisely as possible throughout our day. While this is not something easy to observe, and the term is not something I have coined myself, it's our egos that continuously get in our way. For anyone who doesn't quite understand what I mean, I have an experiment that may help one to become acquainted with his or her ego.

     We tend to believe that we have total control of ourselves, but most of us are influenced by impulse far more often than we think. So here’s the experiment: Set a goal of closing your eyes and not thinking in words, pictures, or with other ideas for just 5 minutes. If we really have as much control as we like to believe, it should extend all the way to control over our very own mind/brain. If ever a thought enters the mind, simply brush it off and return to not thinking. Focusing on a point such as breath may aid in this experiment. For those interested, go ahead and try it now…………….

     Now you don’t owe me any sort of answer because this was a personal experience attempting to help individuals understand what I am referring to when I use the term ego. So, was setting the goal of not thinking enough to simply silence your mind? During the five min period, did anything pop up? Maybe wondering why we were doing this, maybe getting bored and just wanting to get up, maybe urges to go to the bathroom or get some water? Perhaps imagining another place you wanted to be, or revising a conversation you had that day? Maybe the voice was so strong that it convinced some that they could understand what it would be like even without trying the experiment…

     For those who did have thoughts during the trial, that is perfectly normal. That is one way ego communicates with us and attempts to influence actions. It is there nearly always, and specifically it is that thinking that keeps people out of the zone. When those type of thoughts arise while we are doing something, it prevents us from acting as precisely as possible because it separates us one degree from simply acting. Our mind is not fully engaged in the activity, rather its thinking about doing it.

     This can be a difficult concept to understand and this post has already gone on too long, but it would be more confusing in the long run to stop short. I will certainly return to this topic in a variety of ways, hopefully helping people to ‘Notice’ what I’m talking about (See “Noticing Noticing: Learning to Learn”). Remember, noticing is the first step to learning. If we haven’t noticed something, we are oblivious to it and it’s like that thing simply doesn’t exist. This is one of the most significant topics because developing a precise relationship with each of our 'selves' has extremely far reaching affects into the rest of our lives, not to mention the lives of others, and it all begins somewhere between the ears.