The Sweet Spot of Self-Mastery: Strategy, Flow & Play

 

For this 5th edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly, my intention is help you find the sweet spot of your Self-Mastery journey.
Read The Previous Edition Here

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Have you ever had the experience of too much chaos in your life?

All you wanted was for things to calm down and allow clarity to emerge.

What about a time where you had nothing to do and you were so bored?

You almost wished something dramatic would happen, just to give you something to do.

Sometimes life oscillates from one extreme to the next.

When it’s great, it’s great.

When it’s hectic, it’s really hectic.

There is an alternative.

This alternative won’t solve all your problems in life, but it will help you stabilize much deeper. This stabilization will support your mind and body on your journey to Self-Mastery.

You know the sweet spot.

It’s the perfect mix of something that feels just right.

Many sweet spots in life takes dedication, work and effort to arrive there. Once you get there, it feels so satisfying.

Let me blunt with you.

You ARE the sweet spot.

To arrive AT the sweet spot, you become it first.

You identify AS it, then you fully experience it.

This is how lasting change takes place. This changes your State of Being. It changes who you are.

You intuitively know the perimeters of your sweet spot. A little of "this", some of "that", a little more of "this". You may not be able to measure it exactly, but when you have it, you’ll feel it.

Trusting your intuition is powerful during this process. This is trusting yourself.

Adjusting your identity is one of the most powerful and fastest ways to transform.

This is because it supersedes belief systems, patterns, habits, routines and tendencies.

When you change your identity, those other aspects of yourself shift automatically.

Yes, you may need to “un-wire” some of those old habits and behavoirs. You will have the perspective to make the changes as needed.

Here’s a simple example.

Someone who has drank alcohol for much of their adult life identifies as "a person who drinks alcohol". Their beliefs, habits and decisions follow along with that identity.

The moment they identify as a “person who doesn’t drink”, their behavior, habits and decisions change along with it.

The beliefs that are associated with it automatically shift.

This takes time. Depending on how long this person drank alcohol, they have embodied that behavior. It will take time to “un-embody” those behaviors.

This person is changing their neural pathways in the brain. Several other changes are happening in different systems of the body.

Simultaneously, they are strengthening neural pathways or creating new ones for this “new” identity.

Any time we transform ourselves, this is what is happening.

Do you have an example of transformation in your life that is similar to this?

Understand this will take time. But the powerful first step is to identify as it.

So with that shared, let’s discuss the details of the sweet spot for today.

Creating the conditions for, while living through an intended experience.

"Arriving" at the sweet spot.

Have a strategy, but don’t “think” about it too much. It pulls you out of the moment and out of flow.

Strategy is creating with the “end” in mind. This is what Stephen Covey talks about in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.

The thing with strategy is, it lives in the future. It is is something different than the Present Moment.

This is where many focus too much on the plan, milestones, progress and goals. It actually disperses our awareness outside of the Present.

Use strategy, strategically.

Meaning, use it sparingly.

Jump into the “future” with your goals, targets and strategies a tiny portion of your life. Minutes a day, hours a week and month. That’s really it.

The more strategic you can be with strategy, the better.

Let’s break down what being strategic means.

Create a strategy so your path forward is desired and under your "control of intentions".

Having definitive outcomes and results you decide do something powerful.

They help your entire Self to align in a coherent trajectory.

As an example, you decide on an outcome for something to experience in the next 5 years. 

Once you fully decide on that, your conscious mind will begin looking for actions to take. 

Your subconscious mind will feed you ideas and insights out of nowhere to support.

The secret is to have a deep why for these outcomes. Understanding the meaning behind it adds the power of emotions.

Humans are feeling creatures.

We like to feel stuff (most of the time lol).

Our emotions fuel and drives a lot of our behaviors. Strategically creating outcomes that mean a lot to us increases the likelihood of experiencing those outcomes.

The next step of our strategy is to chunk these outcomes into something a little more manageable.

Breaking them down into what can be experienced in 1 year.

This is fairly common knowledge, so we won’t go into too much detail. Essentially, chunking a big outcome into something smaller.

Then, down into monthly and weekly focuses.

Reminding yourself of these outcomes on a weekly basis are subtle, yet powerful ways to reinforce your decisions.

If you go weeks or months without even thinking about the things you say are most important to you, how important are they?

This process can take a little time to “normalize”.

You have been programmed a certain way over the years. You are simply being intentional about programming yourself in another way.

Part of the strategy is creating feedback loops.

“Feedback is information received in response from action.”

Constant feedback and review allows you to adjust as you move forward on your path. Being strategic is to bake-in feedback at different levels and areas of your life.

Daily feedback loops help you adjust in micro and subtle ways. These are often the best because you don’t think much of them. They are almost automatic.

Bigger changes feel like work.

Micro and subtle changes on the daily are great for the “small picture”.

You’ll also want to integrate macro picture feedback loops. These are zoomed out views of what your doing.

Weekly and monthly feedback loops are great for identifying unconscious patterns.

With a more macro view, you can also make macro changes in behavior.

Notice how all these strategic processes are out of the Present Moment in a sense. They aren’t focused on the activity or task at hand.

Dabbling in strategy is a good strategy.

Being strategic with what your being strategic is a good strategy.

Now we’re being meta about strategy lol.

Let’s move onto the next component of our Sweet Spot.

Flow is becoming one with the moment. Becoming one with the process. Letting go of the individual self, and melding into something greater.

Flow is being Present, in the Now.

Flow is harmonizing curiosity, passion and purpose into a single activity.

Flow lives in the here and now. It doesn’t strategize. If it does, the small part of you doesn't know about it lol.

When you get into a state of Flow, especially when focusing on Self-Mastery, you are becoming one with your own nature.

“Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best. More specifically, the term refers to those moments of total absorption, when an individual becomes so focused on what they’re doing that everything else just disappears, and all aspects of performance are significantly amplified.” - Flow Research Collective

According to the Flow Research Collective, you can’t always be in a state of flow. When you’re not in a state of flow, you can be Actively Engaged.

Active Engagement is like flow, but less intense and deep. Active Engagement was defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow.

You can live a life of Active Engagement.

You may remember in the 3rd edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly, we briefly discussed Active Engagement.

As we focus on getting into deeper states of Flow with life, Active Engagement automatically becomes a byproduct.

This is more strategic. Notice the overlap? (strategy & flow)

It also helps manage expectations to know that we won’t be in deep flow most of our lives. Cultivating flow automatically cultivates active engagement.

Intentionally adding Flow into the journey of Self-Mastery compounds on the journey. Over time, it makes it feel less like work and more like play (which we’ll get into shortly).

More overlap lol.

Self-Mastery is understanding yourself more each day and knowing what you like. Knowing what moves you and motivates you forward.

As clarity of who you are emerges, your ability to flow into those activities that you love and enjoy increases.

Can you imagine a life where you are flowing from one great thing in your life to the next?
Perhaps you already have some of that in your life right now.

Let’s discuss a few triggers for flow and how to find that sweet spot.

Risk, novelty, complexity and unpredictability can support you into getting into flow.

Too much of any of these will trigger overwhelm and anxiety. Not enough of these then you will be bored and unmotivated to get into flow.

Security, consistency, simplicity and certainty are the opposites.

If your work leans more on the risky, complex and unpredictable side, then adding some secure, simple and certain activities in your personal life will help you find that sweet spot of flow.

Your sweet spot will be different than others. Trust your own process.

Look to others for inspiration and guidance when needed, but always trust yourself. The feeling of flow will guide you.

That feeling is unmistakable.

What fun is Self-Mastery without enjoying it?

It’s great to know yourself more, but being super serious about it seems pretty boring.

Turning this journey to more like a game allows you to sink deep into the process and not worry about how long it will take you to get “there”.

When you enjoy something, you don’t care all that much if it takes you a day or week to “complete”.

Think back to a game that you really enjoyed playing.

Did it matter if it took an extra hour?

You may have even had a response like “wow, I wish it wouldn’t have ended!”

Think of kids on the playground. They never want play to end. They’re just having too much fun.

We can have a similar feeling with our approach to Self-Mastery.

The nature of Self-Mastery isn’t just understanding yourself on a mental level, but with your entire self.

You will be fully emersed into the process and it will make you feel alive.

And just like with everything we’ve talked about today, there is a balance.

There is a sweet spot.

You may need to add a lot of play into your process. You may have a lot of play already.
Whatever it is, you’ll find your sweet spot more and more each day.

This process will take time.

Some can succumb to perfection, often without realizing it.

The best approach is to live it one day at a time. You may feel overwhelmed at the potential and possibility.

By taking a deep breath in and focusing on today, you’ll make the process easier each day.

Let go of needing to have the “perfect answer” today. Even a refined and distilled answer isn’t needed.

Each day you’ll get better and better.

Today’s insight and clarity will support next weeks insight and clarity.

It’ll always build and before you realize it, you have the refined answer you were looking for a month ago.

By then, a new emerging future will come to light and you can allow that novelty and newness drive you forward.

And so goes the process.

It never ends.

Life is a marathon and Self-Mastery will be a process for the rest of your life.

So getting used to the process makes it easier to navigate.

The process is THE PROCESS.

Expect an incubation period, especially in the first stage of your Self-Mastery journey.

You will likely introduce aspects of yourself that haven’t expressed themselves in a good while. Some maybe ever.

How will your inner child interact with the adult stuff you do?

How will your joyful self interact with your purposeful side to you?

How will getting into deep states of flow change your daily routines?

You may not have the answers to these questions. And that’s okay.

That’s what this incubation period is for. It is for experimentation. You are becoming a scientist and running experiments with yourself.

Expect the unexpected.

Expect change.

And because you are finding your own sweet spot, the right amount of “brain”, strategy, fun, play and flow will be found.

This incubation period may be a couple months, or even half a year.

Yes, that sounds like a LOOONG time…

When you expect it to be longer than you want, you can let go of it for the most part.

Then as you progress on your journey, you can be pleasantly surprised.

During this period, there may even be dramatic clashes within yourself. It doesn’t have to happen, but there may be parts of you that will be stubborn and will resist change.

Yet, you have the wider view. You know that any changes that happen are FOR you.

You can guide yourself through this process, even during moments that feel overwhelming.

You can also reach out to friends and selected mentors to support you in the exact ways you need.

So with that in mind, let’s go over our action steps for this edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly.

This week is two-steps.

1. Begin to identify AS the sweet spot in your life and journey to Self-Mastery. “How can I identify as the sweet spot?” is a great question to ask yourself.
2. Begin to define your sweet spot. This can be done in the form of journaling, contemplating during a walk in nature or having a conversation about it with a trusted friend. Because you are identifying yourself AS the sweet spot in your life, the answers and insights will emerge eventually. Define your strategy, how flow and play fit in your journey.

It may take you some time to move through this process, but trust yourself and remember: HAVE FUN!

When you have fun and let go of what you think this process needs to be, answers emerge nearly effortlessly.

That’s it for this edition of the Joyful Sovereignty Weekly!

Wish you a great rest of your day!

Best,

Lane

P.S. If you enjoyed this edition, share this on your social media or with a friend who you think would enjoy reading this.

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We will discuss how Self-Mastery is the key to unlock all the other doors in your life…

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If you’re looking to create an ecosystem for your life towards Joyful Sovereignty and seeking guidance and accountability, join the waitlist for my upcoming Self-Mastery System by clicking here. More info on that coming very soon.