“Anxiety is thought without control. Flow is control without thought.” – James Clear

When you’re in the zone, doing something you love, so fully captivated that you lose all sense of time and space, what thoughts go through your mind?

In other words, what do you think about when you’re in a state of complete flow?

Pause for about 30 seconds and allow the answer to arise before moving on.

When you’re in a flow state, doing your best work, there is no thinking.

If you do have thoughts, they just flow right through without you having to think about them.

You can verify this truth by examining your own experience of being in the zone.

So being in the zone can be described as the state of non-thinking.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but we’re at our best when we’re NOT thinking.

Here’s an example:

When professional or Olympic athletes compete, do they think about every single move they make?

Of course not.

The highest performing athletes describe their peak state as being in the zone.

As we just established, the “zone” is a state of non-thinking.

This phenomenon is called “mushin” in Japanese culture.

Mushin is achieved when the mind is free of random thoughts, free of anger, free of fear, and free of ego.

There is an absence of rambling thoughts.

It leaves the practitioner free to act and react without hesitation in accordance with his or her study and training.

Actions are based on training, instinct, and subconscious response rather than thought.

After practice, thinking hinders the performance of athletes and non-athletes alike.

Thinking leads to hesitation, doubt, insecurity, and fear.

In short, we perform our best the moment we enter a state of non-thinking and follow our training.

That said, let’s get back to the aforementioned two steps: