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Finding and Entering The Zone is Amazing
Getting into that place where your work just happens with little effort.
I was working on the outline for the fourth novel in my next series. I’m nearing the end, and as I got going during this work session, time just slipped away.
The ideas flowed and I lost all sense of time and space. Before I knew it, I had laid out an amazing chapter.
That’s what getting into the zone is all about. You leave the world behind as you do that thing you love and make shit happen.
This is something anyone can do. Yet, finding and entering this place is more common to martial artists, athletes, and artists.
The zone has many different names. Miyamoto Musashi called it The Place of No Mind in his Book of Five Rings. Others have called it the void, the flow, their happy place, and so on. Whatever you call it, finding it creates an incredible sense of calm, joy, contentment, and achievement.
Entering the zone tends to just happen
I recently read a book by Damon Zahariades called The Art of Finding FLOW. While the author makes many suggestions for ways to trigger this state of being, I believe it’s something that you can’t prepare or plan for. It just happens.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do that will put you in the zone. Concentration, intent, and singular focus will lead you into the zone. But you can’t force your way in, push past the door, or otherwise plan it. You need to be open to it and allow it.
This is all about surrender. Not in the sense of giving up but in the sense of just letting it happen. It might be the event, the project, the words, the painting, or what have you.
Years ago, I was in an important fencing tournament. I had already fought many times that day, but that tends not to tire me out as much as it calms and relaxes me. The time for my fight in this tourney was unknown, but I paid no attention; my focus was singularly on was on the task at hand. I was there and not there at the same time.
Then the bout was called. We fought. To this day, some twenty years later, I remember most of the fight in slow motion. It all felt like I was just inside the zone, seeing it with utter and complete clarity. All these years later, I still think that was the best single fight I’ve ever fought.
There is magic here
The zone is a magical place. It exists outside of time and space; it just is. In that place, be it the void, the flow, the Place of No Mind, or whatever you call it, effort is effortless. It feels natural and all-encompassing in a non-linear way.
I imagine that all the drug addicts and alcoholics seek this place with their distractions of drugs and booze. But this isn’t the absence of existence, thought, or feeling. Rather, it’s the core. The zone is the ultimate midpoint where you live fully, aloud, and without conflict.
Because of the nature of this place, it’s not somewhere you can force yourself into or force in any way to come into being. You must instead be open to the idea, be mindful here and now, and working in the present at whatever the task might be.
Maybe you want to hit the ball, make the shot, get that idea from your mind to the canvas or page, grow the food in your garden, or whatever else your task at hand is. Entering the zone is doing it effortlessly and mindfully, but simultaneously mindlessly.
How does that work? The magic is in trusting that it happens as you desire it to. That’s how you surrender to being, doing, and living here and now. In that way, you are open to entering the zone. It happens when you’re open to it.
Let the zone come to you
All I was doing was working on plotting this chapter. I’d laid down a sentence or two about what it would look like. That’s how I plan these days – some details that will be expanded for the story with scenes, dialogue, descriptions, and actions above and beyond my outline and plan.
This was the third chapter I was plotting today on my way to my 1500-word fiction goal. As I started on it, I found myself seeing it like I was there, and I flowed with the outline, the intention, the way the characters would approach situations as I outlined and plotted the story.
Before I knew it, I had a thorough plan and realized I’d been in the zone doing my work. It’s all too easy to forget how exciting and energizing that can be. It feels good to have spent that time in the zone, going with the flow, planning this chapter.
I was open to it. I’d already meditated today, had my music on in the background, and my cat was lying beside my keyboard. As I got into it, the zone came to me, and from within it I did my work.
You can’t seek it, per se. The zone is reached by allowing it. When you’re open to it and doing what you love, it can and will come to you.
My experience differs from yours
When it comes to you, relish it, enjoy it, and after it passes, be grateful. Gratitude is an ultimate empowerer on numerous levels. Being thankful tells the universe you’re open to more to be grateful for.
These have been just a couple of examples of what the zone looks like. And I was left with sufficient residual energy after the experience to share it with you. Your experiences in this place of place and no time will likely differ from mine. What’s similar, I believe, is the sense of contentment, wonder, and centered calm that often are part of it.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own creator, whatever form that takes?
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