Discovering the Zone of Peak Performance: Flow, Glow, and Zero
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179 page
E-book.
Our typical approaches to resolving troubling conditions and issues are completely oblivious of the crucial fact that all these conditions as well as the self structure to which they seem to 'belong' are simply (convincingly real) instant-by-instant fabrications that don't need solving. We can learn to see how the apparently continuous movie of life, with limiting habits of self at center stage, is actually a bewildering flurry of momentary, fleeting projections onto the screen of ordinary consciousness. Troubling scenarios clearly have no absolute or fixed, unchangeable nature—unpleasant experiences seem 'real' only because of the way of projecting. We can let the projecting process go, without 'freezing' it and then trying to fix the problems that were frozen. Aware of this projecting, we can redirect its energy, breaking up limiting scenarios as soon as they appear, and before we get caught up in the parts and story lines. By recognizing the ordinary structures of life before they are firmly in place, as they are just taking the stage, we can directly and powerfully break free from limiting patterns. Without special effort—for no effort is needed—the whole of experience is already transformed. (DTS, p. 302) "Our whole purpose is to go beyond this typical lower time orientation of 'someone's doing something'. . . . If we can understand this correctly, then our difficulties in living can be solved very easily, naturally." (pp. xxxv, DOT I) "The idea should be to not add or subtract anything from the immediacy of any knowing encounter." (p. xiii, DOT I) "Everything required for contacting freedom and everything required . . . is already being done." (Interview with Tarthang Tulku)
Synopsis:
Chapter 1: Personal and cultural conditioning enables us to function normally and pragmatically within a culture, but it also limits what we perceive and do in rigid, habitual ways.
Chapter 2: Research on the zone of peak performance shows that we function optimally in the zone without the influence of 'normal', complex layers of conditioning.
Chapter 3: Three main levels, including our normal condition and the zone of peak performance, characterize the range of participation possible for us as humans and provide an indication of how we can make the transition from 'normal' to optimal.
Chapter 4: Rather than a 'faithful' and direct reflection of what's happening around us, our experience is normally fabricated unconsciously in a fraction of a second from our sense perceptions, complexes, habitual tendencies, and complexes. Seeing this apperceptive process in action enables us to immediately free ourselves of the stressful effects that it produces.
Chapter 5: Our typical approach to resolving troubling conditions and issues is completely oblivious of the fact that these conditions as well as the 'owning' self are convincingly real, but momentary and fleeting apperceptive fabrications that don't need correcting--we can let the process go, without trying to freeze it and then fix what was frozen.
Chapter 6: Both troubling and liberating conditions can be grouped according to various questions that are central to our lives, with subgroups for normal, abnormal, and optimal conditions; additional questions may be designed to assist in tracking where along the spectra our experience 'falls' at any time.
Chapter 7: Exercises in the following twelve chapters--one for each of twelve important facets of experience--provide an opportunity to explore apparent issues, limitations, and conditions as they appear. Identify a condition, then choose an appropriate exercise. Within the context of the exercise, all that's necessary to resolve an issue is to thoroughly, openly, and persistently attend to what's happening. All these conditions as well as the self structure to which they seem to 'belong' are convincingly real, but momentary and fleeting fabrications that don't need correcting. What is very likely to happen is that the exploration will tend to open up and dissolve the substance, 'realness', and dimensionality of the situation explored.
Chapter 8: Facet 1, effort: Are you applying effort or control to something that feels separate from you, or does your activity seem to flow effortlessly ‘by itself’?
Chapter 9: Facet 2, creativity: Do things feel familiar, somewhat predictable, or even habitual, or does each new moment, along with all that appears in the momentary scenario, seem spontaneous and fresh?
Chapter 10: Facet 3, engagement / accomplishment: How involved or engaged are you in the immediate activity scenario?
Chapter 11: Facet 4, objective space: Do objects and events take up space and appear to be separate and dispersed, or are do they seem intimately connected in and even as one space?
Chapter 12: Facet 5, subjective space: Is there a private space or personal world that feels separate from everything outside, or do inner and outer, subjective and objective appear to be inseparable facets of the same undivided space?
Chapter 13: Facet 6, identity: Is there a sense of self that stands apart from experience and externals, or do you feel identified with, or absorbed in, what is happening?
Chapter 14: Facet 7, coherence of knowing: Is knowing a two-term act by which the self momentarily bridges a gap, or is knowing an undivided awareness that is not limited to a particular position or 'point of view' at all?
Chapter 15: Facet 8, clarity of knowing: Is knowledge subjective, uncertain, faulty, and biased, based on detached observation, or is it coherent and illuminating clarity merged with the subject being explored?
Chapter 16: Facet 9, emotion: Is there discontent and frustration, excitement and depression, and emotional imbalance shaped by pastness, or is there a strong sense of calm and balanced equanimity?
Chapter 17: Facet 10, desire / fulfillment: Are you driven by a need or a desire for pleasure, or is everything being found to be immediately and inherently fulfilling?
Chapter 18: Facet 11, feeling of time: Do you notice a feeling of time flowing in the background, or are you timelessly involved in something?
Chapter 19, Facet 12, feeling of reality: Does reality seem solid, fixed, and substantial, or does everything seem somewhat fluid or dreamlike?
Chapter 20: We can optimize progress by focusing on improving inner engagement or involvement, moving toward the zone. Whatever we can do to dissolve limitations–and in particular to decrease the holding strength of our complexes, negative habits, and other experiential structures–will help to simultaneously deepen engagement, contribute to our improving performance and fulfillment, and approach the ‘zone’ of peak performance.
Chapter 21: We optimize work progress not by focusing on 'externals' nor by focusing our attention on results, which doesn’t guarantee improvement of well-being and quality. The driver and key to sustainable business success is continuously improving employees’ 'internals', perspectives and qualities of experience, particularly one's inner, moment-by-moment involvement or engagement. Since inner, experiential involvement in the current scenario is directly proportional to employee well-being, productivity, and quality of product and service, tracking and improving experiential involvement is both an indicator and a driver of all aspects of progress. By focusing on improving inner involvement in our work, we can increase productivity, well-being, and quality—all at once.
Chapter 22: In order to optimally drive progress in productivity, well-being, quality, and work capacity in any culture and environment, the primary focus should be to continuously improve inner involvement, which is defined as a measure of one or more dimensions of values that are experientially possible and measurable during a work period. Each individual defines performance values to measure his/her involvement along one or more dimensions of the experiential field. Then, assuming that individuals periodically make suitable and timely redefinitions of their performance values, the following two practices should optimally drive and sustain long-term individual and, for those involved in organizations, organizational progress: (1) The primary practice, related to the experiential field: Make increasing-involvement 'moves' in the field as often as one can, while:(2) Acting and keeping one's scoreboard “at the back of one's mind.” This approach can serve as a genuine meeting ground for personal fulfillment and corporate results, and has real potential for breaking through the common employee distrust of management’s motives.
E-book.
Our typical approaches to resolving troubling conditions and issues are completely oblivious of the crucial fact that all these conditions as well as the self structure to which they seem to 'belong' are simply (convincingly real) instant-by-instant fabrications that don't need solving. We can learn to see how the apparently continuous movie of life, with limiting habits of self at center stage, is actually a bewildering flurry of momentary, fleeting projections onto the screen of ordinary consciousness. Troubling scenarios clearly have no absolute or fixed, unchangeable nature—unpleasant experiences seem 'real' only because of the way of projecting. We can let the projecting process go, without 'freezing' it and then trying to fix the problems that were frozen. Aware of this projecting, we can redirect its energy, breaking up limiting scenarios as soon as they appear, and before we get caught up in the parts and story lines. By recognizing the ordinary structures of life before they are firmly in place, as they are just taking the stage, we can directly and powerfully break free from limiting patterns. Without special effort—for no effort is needed—the whole of experience is already transformed. (DTS, p. 302) "Our whole purpose is to go beyond this typical lower time orientation of 'someone's doing something'. . . . If we can understand this correctly, then our difficulties in living can be solved very easily, naturally." (pp. xxxv, DOT I) "The idea should be to not add or subtract anything from the immediacy of any knowing encounter." (p. xiii, DOT I) "Everything required for contacting freedom and everything required . . . is already being done." (Interview with Tarthang Tulku)
Synopsis:
Chapter 1: Personal and cultural conditioning enables us to function normally and pragmatically within a culture, but it also limits what we perceive and do in rigid, habitual ways.
Chapter 2: Research on the zone of peak performance shows that we function optimally in the zone without the influence of 'normal', complex layers of conditioning.
Chapter 3: Three main levels, including our normal condition and the zone of peak performance, characterize the range of participation possible for us as humans and provide an indication of how we can make the transition from 'normal' to optimal.
Chapter 4: Rather than a 'faithful' and direct reflection of what's happening around us, our experience is normally fabricated unconsciously in a fraction of a second from our sense perceptions, complexes, habitual tendencies, and complexes. Seeing this apperceptive process in action enables us to immediately free ourselves of the stressful effects that it produces.
Chapter 5: Our typical approach to resolving troubling conditions and issues is completely oblivious of the fact that these conditions as well as the 'owning' self are convincingly real, but momentary and fleeting apperceptive fabrications that don't need correcting--we can let the process go, without trying to freeze it and then fix what was frozen.
Chapter 6: Both troubling and liberating conditions can be grouped according to various questions that are central to our lives, with subgroups for normal, abnormal, and optimal conditions; additional questions may be designed to assist in tracking where along the spectra our experience 'falls' at any time.
Chapter 7: Exercises in the following twelve chapters--one for each of twelve important facets of experience--provide an opportunity to explore apparent issues, limitations, and conditions as they appear. Identify a condition, then choose an appropriate exercise. Within the context of the exercise, all that's necessary to resolve an issue is to thoroughly, openly, and persistently attend to what's happening. All these conditions as well as the self structure to which they seem to 'belong' are convincingly real, but momentary and fleeting fabrications that don't need correcting. What is very likely to happen is that the exploration will tend to open up and dissolve the substance, 'realness', and dimensionality of the situation explored.
Chapter 8: Facet 1, effort: Are you applying effort or control to something that feels separate from you, or does your activity seem to flow effortlessly ‘by itself’?
Chapter 9: Facet 2, creativity: Do things feel familiar, somewhat predictable, or even habitual, or does each new moment, along with all that appears in the momentary scenario, seem spontaneous and fresh?
Chapter 10: Facet 3, engagement / accomplishment: How involved or engaged are you in the immediate activity scenario?
Chapter 11: Facet 4, objective space: Do objects and events take up space and appear to be separate and dispersed, or are do they seem intimately connected in and even as one space?
Chapter 12: Facet 5, subjective space: Is there a private space or personal world that feels separate from everything outside, or do inner and outer, subjective and objective appear to be inseparable facets of the same undivided space?
Chapter 13: Facet 6, identity: Is there a sense of self that stands apart from experience and externals, or do you feel identified with, or absorbed in, what is happening?
Chapter 14: Facet 7, coherence of knowing: Is knowing a two-term act by which the self momentarily bridges a gap, or is knowing an undivided awareness that is not limited to a particular position or 'point of view' at all?
Chapter 15: Facet 8, clarity of knowing: Is knowledge subjective, uncertain, faulty, and biased, based on detached observation, or is it coherent and illuminating clarity merged with the subject being explored?
Chapter 16: Facet 9, emotion: Is there discontent and frustration, excitement and depression, and emotional imbalance shaped by pastness, or is there a strong sense of calm and balanced equanimity?
Chapter 17: Facet 10, desire / fulfillment: Are you driven by a need or a desire for pleasure, or is everything being found to be immediately and inherently fulfilling?
Chapter 18: Facet 11, feeling of time: Do you notice a feeling of time flowing in the background, or are you timelessly involved in something?
Chapter 19, Facet 12, feeling of reality: Does reality seem solid, fixed, and substantial, or does everything seem somewhat fluid or dreamlike?
Chapter 20: We can optimize progress by focusing on improving inner engagement or involvement, moving toward the zone. Whatever we can do to dissolve limitations–and in particular to decrease the holding strength of our complexes, negative habits, and other experiential structures–will help to simultaneously deepen engagement, contribute to our improving performance and fulfillment, and approach the ‘zone’ of peak performance.
Chapter 21: We optimize work progress not by focusing on 'externals' nor by focusing our attention on results, which doesn’t guarantee improvement of well-being and quality. The driver and key to sustainable business success is continuously improving employees’ 'internals', perspectives and qualities of experience, particularly one's inner, moment-by-moment involvement or engagement. Since inner, experiential involvement in the current scenario is directly proportional to employee well-being, productivity, and quality of product and service, tracking and improving experiential involvement is both an indicator and a driver of all aspects of progress. By focusing on improving inner involvement in our work, we can increase productivity, well-being, and quality—all at once.
Chapter 22: In order to optimally drive progress in productivity, well-being, quality, and work capacity in any culture and environment, the primary focus should be to continuously improve inner involvement, which is defined as a measure of one or more dimensions of values that are experientially possible and measurable during a work period. Each individual defines performance values to measure his/her involvement along one or more dimensions of the experiential field. Then, assuming that individuals periodically make suitable and timely redefinitions of their performance values, the following two practices should optimally drive and sustain long-term individual and, for those involved in organizations, organizational progress: (1) The primary practice, related to the experiential field: Make increasing-involvement 'moves' in the field as often as one can, while:(2) Acting and keeping one's scoreboard “at the back of one's mind.” This approach can serve as a genuine meeting ground for personal fulfillment and corporate results, and has real potential for breaking through the common employee distrust of management’s motives.
