Flow Over Hustle: How to Unlock Meaning and Achievement Without Burning Out

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 00:05

Welcome back to another episode of Meaning vs. Merit, the podcast that unpacks the pressure to be special, the cost of constantly proving your worth, and discusses how to break free and live a more meaningful life. I'm Dr. Maria Christina, and today I'm excited to talk with our guest, Dr. Julia Colangelo, our expert on flow. We'll discuss what it is, how it can help us break free from chasing specialness,

and how Flow can help you live both a more meaningful life and still achieve. Before we get started, as always, I want to invite you to take a minute to rate, review, and subscribe if you like our show. Now, without further ado, let's turn to Dr. Julia. So it is so nice to have you on our show. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 00:56

Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 00:59

Yeah, we would love to just start off getting to know you a little bit. I know that you're an expert on flow. I actually specifically said in our intro, you're our expert on flow because I know Dr. Julia as a friend, as a mentor, I'm learning more and more about flow from you. And I know our guests would love to learn from you too. So maybe you can just start off telling us a little bit about yourself and then we'll dive into what flow even is.

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 01:27

Awesome. So I want to set the stage that I got into flow because I was someone who couldn't naturally get into a flow state. It felt like it was something I unlearned in my attempts to achieve in that kind of a race to graduate from one, you know, from high school to undergrad, grad school, eventually my doctorate. And in between there were these sort of windows and

portals into saying, there's got to be a simpler way. There's got to be a different way, a more creative way. But I definitely had this sort of blanket of self doubt. And I felt like once I focused, I could achieve, but getting into that state of flow where I could focus and complete a task or move the needle on an exciting project, or you can just prepare for a final or write a paper, it felt like such a struggle.

And so first I came upon mindfulness as this entry point into, okay, being in the acceptance, being in the gentle, compassionate awareness of any of the struggles that I'm having, any of the self doubt, any of those judgments I'm impressioning onto my brain and neural pathways and just being neutral and eventually in some ways befriending it. And that

experience of relating to myself in a more kind way allowed me to then say, okay, I've engaged in this mindful practice and now I'm buzzing with ideas. I have all these creative downloads. Where do I put them? How do I put them somewhere? And over time I discovered flow theory from positive psychology within our field. And there were so many answers that came through that discovery.

but also so many more questions as a natural researcher that I said to myself, this can't be the whole answer. Because what I discovered, and we've talked about this, is there were a lot of all or nothing presentations of flow theory. What some people even might refer to as sort of this masculine peak performance energy that, again, was all or nothing. And that for me, as

a young adult with chronic health issues, know, hoping to start a family, balancing career and family and caregiving and work and, you know, dreams. I was saying, this is not sustainable to chase something that's so all or nothing or so focused on peak performance, but that requires five to 10 hours a day, basically your whole day. And so I went at my own research into flow as saying,

How can I make this not only sustainable, but accessible? How can I make it regenerative so that any of the seeds I plant for my flow state today that get me into a creative way of thinking also aid me next week, next month, next year, that move the needle in a way that isn't going to require me to overstretch and lead to more burnout, but instead plant those seeds and say, okay, I can.

ease into a flow state, I can actually enjoy it. I can be playful and wondrous with it. And then that will actually help move the needle on the things that carry so much meaning, which of course is what this, what this is all about, right? Creating meaning and living with merit.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 05:05

That's awesome. I have so many questions for you. Okay, so you have this your own experience of struggling to get into flow. Let me start with what is flow?

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 05:08

Go ahead!

Yeah, so flow is defined as a state of consciousness where you are performing at your highest level, where you are naturally in your strengths, in your gifts, and you're lacking that usual for most of us, self-doubt. So you're self-assured. You know that you're moving in the right direction, and that's something that happens. It's a neurological experience, but it's also something that over time,

you start to feel in this integrated way, sort of in your conversations. I've noticed the change mostly in my patients with being a parent to young kids, where I've just noticed my bandwidth has expanded, where I felt like at my earliest parenting years, it was shrinking, like at a huge cost to the harmony of my family. And so I think that that's the way to...

think about flow, you can also think about flow as a current. It's easy for us to want a solid answer of flow is just this moment in time where you're running a race and you're winning the race and you outperformed even your own personal best. So that's certainly a definition that can be used, but thinking of flow as this channel or current where you are moving between

where you've been performing well in the past and where you're at your best. And that that's actually, there's a spectrum within there, that current moves. So it's like that high tide to low tide is all within your flow channel as opposed to if you push yourself to that peak performance state too much too often, you will inevitably burn out and that will.

make you crash and burn and make it much harder to enter a flow state the next day when you have another paper due, when you are, you know, required to speak on a stage or lead a group or start a new job.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 07:25

Okay. So you said something in the very beginning about part of being in flow is doing the things that we're good at. And I'm guessing we're inspired by, we kind of come alive when we're doing them. Question, in our day's current times of social media and just the internet, where we're inundated,

with so much of what's going on in other people's lives. I imagine, not just I imagine, I know from my own experience, it's so easy to get distracted. Oh, they're doing this. That sounds really exciting. I could probably do it too. Why have I not done that yet? Right? How do you stay in your flow state with the things that are inspiring to you and maybe get creative and try things out playfully, but also keep it

playful, I imagine, and not distracted and then in this chase of I need to be doing and proving myself in all these ways because other people are doing it.

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 08:33

That's a great question. I'm going to get pretty tangible so that if you're a planner or if you're a doer, you can get out your notebook. But I want you to look at either your next seven days or the next month and think through what is realistically going to work for you in your relationship to your creative thinking, to your flow state, to the state of consciousness where you actually can log off, opt out, and focus on what matters most to you.

And realistically, most of us need between one and two days a week, but not seven days a week. And so I think the first step is setting the expectation and having that internal conversation with yourself of saying, okay, I'm inevitably going to get derailed by the news, by social media, by the compare and despair trap that I'm seeing, I should move in that direction, chase that shiny object. That's part of our human nature is to be curious.

And so just offer yourself compassion and then check in with the expectations you have been putting on yourself. For me, that required me to say, okay, one day a week, have lots of meetings, interviews, teaching, client sessions. And about one afternoon a week is realistic for me to be in my flow state in a larger block of we're talking 90 minutes to three hours. So if you zoom out from your own calendar,

What is actually realistic? I think a lot of people fall into the trap of saying every day from nine to noon, I have to do this. And that requires a pre-step to say, what do I really need to do? Because when you're in flow, your brain can actually function in such a focused way. You can, that elusive productivity and efficiency many of us crave because we have a lot of responsibilities between work and life. We can actually.

achieve that nine to noon, 15 hour commitment that we've set ourselves up for. And that is sort of a trap. We could do that in one three hour block designated at a time where we've set the conditions to be in flow. So for me, even this morning, I was talking to a client and I said, you bet. I sometimes am at my computer. I, I kind of need to create a deliverable. I need to move something along. I can't. So I will walk.

with my umbrella and the pouring rain. We're living in a rainy neighborhood here on Maui. It rains every day. It's sunny and bright every day, but I just never know when I'm gonna be in flow and what the weather will be like. And I'll be just having that mental health walk that will activate a flow state for about 10 minutes. I'll eat something really flavorful and I'll set myself up. I'll communicate with my loved ones. Hey, I'm gonna be in the zone for about three hours.

You're not going to see me or if you do see me know that I've got this commitment and that we've sort of set this ecosystem up to that. That's not every single day. That's not seven days a week or even five days a week. That's usually one afternoon. And it's usually when the alternative is a lot of extra play and wonder for them. Right? So this weekend it was, they were just like playing and building. And I only needed from that three hours, about 75 minutes.

to review a document, to add in some additions, and to be able to schedule send it off. And you notice that was on a Sunday afternoon, but that's because the rules of flow that you get to create have to work for you and your life. And so for me, that means a Sunday afternoon when the world is either stressing for the week ahead or they're resting completely. I gift myself the opportunity to be in flow in a little

quiet break where I get to just tap into that state. So I think it's reverse engineering what really needs to get done. Having that honest conversation with yourself, setting the expectations that are more compassionate rather than really restrictive, and auditing what you've been doing and what unrealistic expectations you might be holding yourself to. Cause that kind of contributes to this cycle of why it feels like

There's so much chasing or urgency or comparison. feel like on social media, when the truth is, you, when you zoom out and you say, this is actually what matters. This is the dream I want to go after. This is the project I'm invested in and care about. Then, then you really do know where to focus. And to your point with skill, you want to do it. So all these flow projects that I'm working on, they require that I have some skill level, but actually in this state,

right now that I'm in, they're all challenging me to one degree or another. And that's part of flow too, is that you don't want to just stay in the plateau of, for example, for me it was, if I'm just doing one branch of my work, day in, day out, it would inevitably become slightly boring, not in the creative state that we want our kids to become bored so they become innovators, but as adults, like almost mundane on autopilot. And so then.

We want something to add, as I call it, an intentional disruption. So that could be a different environment. In fact, this weekend when I was leaning into that, I said, I'm not getting there. And so I gave my husband the look. I'm like, in about 15 minutes, he's like, I know, you might take the car and go to a cafe. Do whatever you need to do. Just get it done, right? And that was enough of a push to move me into knowing that I've got this. I'll just kind of redo my flow activators.

go on another walk, I'll eat something flavorful, activate my senses, I'll listen to two special songs that usually kind of just get me motivated and take it from there.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 14:23

Okay. So the more I hear from you about flow, the more I want to learn because it's, it sounds on one hand, you know, there's certainly the term flow, I think in our cultural narrative. And so it sounds somewhat simple at one level, but the more you talk about it, it actually sounds more and more complicated, and not so straightforward. So you're talking for example, about activators.

right? And you gave some great examples. I'm just wondering, how do we know if we're in a flow state? And one example is, I often feel like I'm in a flow state when I've had a cup of coffee. I don't know that that is supposed to get

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 15:07

I love

it.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 15:13

What are the indicators for ourselves?

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 15:16

Yeah, you start to feel more connected to your sense of self. I saw someone the other day and they had their shirt inside out. I friendly, you know, being a friend and always wanting to be the person who tells someone if they have food stuck in their teeth. said, you know, I just kind of leaned and I said, I just noticed your shirts inside out. And they looked at me they just said, thank you for letting me know. They said, I like it this way. This is my preference. It's more comfortable on my skin. And I said, that's awesome.

And so I said to myself, that person's in flow. know who they are. They have this comfort with themselves. I'm not judging. I was just trying to be helpful in that moment. and the indicators that you feel self-assured is going to say, yeah, this is, this is working for me. And some of these are sort of eccentric. So me pacing in my backyard with, with an umbrella.

kind of eccentric behavior maybe, right? To kind of see, but I know, okay, every thousand steps, I'm more likely to activate a flow state right after that. And so I know in our coaching, in our therapy work, we're constantly working with clients who are able to say, you know, we're noticing the patterns alongside of them. We are gently reflecting them back. And the same we would do is with becoming their own researcher and sort of hacking their own flow. But for most people,

Things like going into nature, connecting with their core desires and dreams, talking about what they care about. Maybe if something that they prioritized in the past has shifted, leveling with them on that movement of any type. For me, something like yoga or stretching, it doesn't do it enough because of some of my chronic health issues, but simply walking has been so transformative.

to just keep the pace and create this rhythm. Even something like skipping in, you if you have like an island in your home, you know, skipping around the kitchen island for, again, a spurt of 30 seconds. Something that connects both hemispheres of your brain is going to also just set you up for more possibilities to enter a flow state. And like, you know, like anything, it takes trial and error.

for your custom experience. And I do want to clarify flow is flow in its most simple, but sustainable format is, is pretty simple and straightforward. It's that we want to customize it so that it works on our terms, on our timeline. I don't know about you, but sometimes I forecast into the future of saying, wow, probably in 20 years, I will have more space and windows of time.

to enter a flow state, potentially, right? If my kids are older, they're going to be at a different life stage. And so I know that my conditions will also change. Sometimes having more time means that we are less motivated or our behaviors kind of shift, but it's all about bringing that compassionate awareness to any of the patterns that you've noticed have gotten you into flow in the past and reverse engineering from that. So sometimes people are like, I just don't even know where to begin.

Ask yourself, when did you perform in a way that you were held to your standards of excellence? And you looked at yourself and said, this is where I want to experience life more, from this viewpoint, looking through this filter and seeing the world and experiencing the world. And then I'll say, great, what did you do right before that? Well, I had a meaningful conversation with a friend. Okay, what'd you do before that?

I had my favorite coffee. I sat at my cafe and just had a book open. So then you start to understand what's probably activating and positioning you to feel in your power and your sense of meaning and really live with merit. Sometimes when I go to an event and I just listen, that will be a flow activator. So again, these are things that we are doing automatically and pretty regularly as professionals, but what parts

are you actually kind of engaging with and which ones will age you is something that you can explore at your own pace. And it's going to be slightly different for each of us. Obviously social media and influences, I'm here on Maui, so I'm already six to 12 hours behind many of my clients and the rest of the world. But even so, I know that my

Morning windows and late evening windows offer opportunities to get really creative. That's why I postpone people joke. They're like, wow, you post it midnight East coast time or, you know, which is 6 PM, usually Maui time. But it's because the last thing I'm doing is going to do something that is relating to any external feedback. That's the last thing I'll do. The first is going to be this internal barometer, this internal.

kind of private, quiet relationship with my flow state where I'm really in touch and connected. And that's something that is an immediate tweak that when people do that shift and they sort of wait till the end of the day and they come to terms with being okay with being delayed on news alerts or posting at the end of the day and not worrying about if the algorithm likes it or doesn't, that's like a flex that

that lets you know that you're prioritizing your flow. And that's something that I think people can do more immediately. Unfortunately, the news alerts will just keep coming. There will be more shiny objects and more people living their dreams that inspire us to want to move in that direction at the same time too. But I think just de-prioritizing the external validation that social media or news has created, that's a step in the right direction.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 21:30

That's awesome. So one of the things that comes to mind is I'm always thinking about things within context, right? And I am wondering how we can prioritize a flow state, what might help and achieve getting there when life is more challenging. And so for example, you know, some of the things that come to mind are the economy, which is

In a rough spot, we may be headed into a recession according to many people, but it's not that it's been great for a while. A lot of things are stagnated. We don't have the same kind of upward mobility that we used to have. And I hear a lot of people saying, I just don't have the privilege to prioritize things like this. I need to be focused on income. And things like that, the elections, think,

I don't think I know just from talking to everybody, every single person with whom I've spoken, I just, find people are on edge, whether it's people who's, you know, candidate one and they're kind of trying to prove that they were right or people who's candidate did not win and they are really upset and maybe trying to prove that actually right. You know, everyone's just kind of on edge. And, and I mean, the other example that comes to mind

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 22:51

They were.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 22:59

which you know better than anyone, are things like natural disasters, right? There's three sort of different examples where the context can just change on us. I imagine, I mean, they influence our lives. I imagine they influence our ability to prioritize and focus on flow. What are your recommendations? You know better than anyone.

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 23:19

I think that the most important step is to like, when people come to me and I mean, I work with all sorts of different leaders and companies and if they want the faster track to avoid being impacted by the recession, to have a playbook, to respond to a natural disaster flow carries the answer and it's a personal experience. And so while I

empathize with the need to prioritize more urgent needs, such as maybe paying the bills, making money, putting food on the table. I have had to deal with all of those challenges after the Maui fires. The invitation to engage with your flow state is freely available to you, and it can be the catalyst to create an alternative solution. And so I'd say with being on edge,

that's an opportunity to also nurture your own growth edges and flow is an, an opportunity. It offers you that opportunity. I'd say that also the compassion with which you will lead through any of these experiences, which means that I tend to be an observer. I'm listening. I'm tuning in even when I myself have been the victim of natural disaster or health issues.

And that gentle awareness has allowed me to enter the state of flow consciousness, even when it feels like some of my basic needs have been taken from me or are unavailable or I am on the struggle bus. so engaging thoughtfully, knowing that like your flow state is a part of you and it's something that will be available to you again amidst any circumstance, but it is that sort of opt in.

And I think that one of the ways that I've faced resiliency and been able to recover in very dark moments has been that this thread of being creative, even when it wasn't on this awesome, creative, research-bending, expansive scale, but it was

creative by making bracelets, doing something with my hands, making, making crafts or painting something artistic, anything that you can do. I had this conversation with another client today with your hands to sort of just be in the moment. And remember we started this conversation with mindfulness and when, when anything feels too extreme or you feel on edge, the solution people.

opt into is let's over complicate. Let's add in another element. Let's add in another revenue stream. Let's add in this other option. Let's, you know, try to hire another team member. But the solution is to bring it back to basics. And so that's the same for your mental game. And so if you're challenged, bring it back to the present moment, which is the practice of mindfulness. When people come to me and they have a two hour practice every day,

of their meditation and their yoga practice, and I'm impressed by that, but they're overthinking and they're stuck in some patterns they want to break. We bring it back to basics with finger tracing and breathing in the moment and box breathing. So I think that evaluating and it is a privilege to be able to step back and say, I'm zooming out and I'm seeing that I'm on edge. I'm angry. There's so many injustices in the world. This is not okay.

and to be the best advocate, to be the best support. I know from myself, from a lot of trial and error, it's to zoom out enough to say, okay, here's the avenue that I can still do good with, and I can still positively contribute in this way.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 27:29

Awesome. Wow. I know that, I know I want to learn more and I know that you're going to to Julia. Yes, we want you back. So tell us, how do we find out more about you?

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 27:36

have to

Yes, well, I have the podcast Flow, so you can find that on Apple Podcasts, Flow with Dr. Julia Colangelo. I'm on Instagram at the FlowBrain and at my name at Dr. Julia Colangelo. And if you ever have a question, you can just DM me. You can email me. I'm an elder millennial, so I love emails with questions. And then that usually creates...

helps me create the next video, the next podcast episode. So I love answering questions and creating content to just share and help. And then I have the flow newsletter. Uh, one of the things you know, that I create are these playlists. I had, I think we had about eight so far and they are free for lifetime. So that's at drjuliacalangelo.com slash playlist. And, uh, those are just, uh, that's a way to join my newsletter.

And you'll get access to all of these Spotify links for playlists that I like to create around different events, different moods, all of that. So thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 28:44

Thank you for being here. And everyone, to everyone listening, I so highly recommend Dr. Julia in tuning in to everything she has to teach. Yeah, I think it's just invaluable. So I do hope to have you back. And thank you again for being on our show.

Dr. Julia Colangelo (: 29:01

Thank you so much.

Dr. Maria-Christina Stewart (: 29:05

Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Meaning vs. Merit. If you liked the episode or think it would be helpful for someone else, please leave a review of it on your podcast listening app, such as Apple Podcasts. You can scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, to the rating and reviews section, and leave a review there. Or you can review it at podchaser.com. If you have any questions that you want me to discuss on this show, let me know on Instagram at Dr. Maria Christina.

Until next time, I'm going to encourage you to think about our two M &Ms, meaning and merit, and see what happens when we embrace meaning first and allow merit to follow. See you next time.