Well, folks, I finally sold my house and got moved into my new home. It’s weird being in an apartment again, but I’m loving not having to worry about maintenance, yardwork, housework, cooking for myself, and trying to keep up financially with everything.

I made decision to sell my house on December 15, 2025, and closed on April 8, 2026. It felt like forever, but it happened relatively fast. My amazing daughter packed up my house and helped me downsize. [HINT: If you are over 65, start getting rid of stuff NOW! It is amazing what we hang onto.]

I moved to a senior living community about 10 miles away from the house I sold. My daughter has been helping me get unpacked and settled. I think we only have about 25 more boxes to unpack (out of only-God-knows-how-many we started with).

I love my apartment and the community. The picture above is the view from my office window.

All this to say that I’m ready to start writing again. I have a dozen projects rolling around in my head. Watch this space!

House still on market.

All I need is one buyer.

Remaining grateful.

Subscribe now

Thank you for reading!

Learn to Flow!

Dr. Judy

My house went on the market on January 23. We were supposed to have an open house today. Then, we changed it to January 31. Then the ice storm hit Atlanta.

The Universe is saying, “Patience, grasshopper!”

We have changed the open house to February 7 between 2:00 and 4:00. Once the ice is gone, I will allow Realtors to show the house to individual buyers.

Many family members and friends have been helping pack my house. I cannot thank them enough for their time and generousity.

I still don’t know where I’m going. I need the money from the sale of the house to move. However, I have four indepedent retirement communities picked out. They all have apartments available that would work for me. They are all lovely with happy staff, happy residents, and excellent amenities. I have options.

In the meantime, it’s burn barrel time: My heart is in Dalton, GA, with the very cold candidates and instructors in Class #68 of the Georgia Smoke Diver program, which starts today.

[Photo credit: Chez Gosnell, GSD #1103]

Subscribe now

Thank you for reading!

Learn to Flow!

Dr. Judy

Last weekend, while picking up my dog’s poop in my very hilly and uneven back yard, I had an epiphany—a moment of clarity and awareness. I thought, “You know, some day, someone is going to find you face down in poop in the back yard because you fell and couldn’t get up.”

In that moment I realized that it’s time to sell my house and move into a community where I will be safe. I do not take this decision lightly. During the COVID years, I spent a lot of time and money crafting a space and a backyard where I loved to be. Now I’m deciding to leave it.

My diminished mobility is dictating this decision. Aging is a difficult process to endure. But as they say, it’s better than the alternative.

The time is now—before the colors of spring change my mind.

I want you, dear reader, to know why my posts will be less often while I go through this transition. I hope to be settled in a new home by the end of March.

I look forward to reconnecting more regularly at that time.

Happy Holidays to all.

Thank you for reading!

Learn to Flow!

Dr. Judy

Jack taking his horse back to the barn after a lesson at Il Paretaio in 2008. Author’s note: Jack would be around 25ish now. I often wonder what he is doing now. Photo credit: Judith Glick-Smith

Our senses can drop us into a flow state. Music can trigger something in you that energizes you, causing you to push forward. Likewise, some people prefer no sound—absolute quiet—to engage in and focus on creative endeavors.

Visual activation occurs when we see something that causes us to engage more fully in the activity. For example, a researcher discovering a new bio entity under a microscope or a news reporter witnessing an unexpected event.

Taste can trigger flow for some people. Chefs look for that new ingredient to use or an everyday ingredient to use in a new way.

Taste also can trigger flow for fire investigators because the taste of smoke is an indicator as to what kind of fire occurred and whether it was set intentionally.

Touch is also a strong trigger of flow. Consider surgeons trying to stop a bleed in a patient when they can’t see where the bleed is emanating from. They must feel for the breach. The rescue scuba diver searching for a car or a body in a murky lake does it by feeling his or her way.

If you are a prolific baker, you know by smell when the cookies are done.

People who love horses drop into a flow state just by entering a horse barn and experiencing the smell of horses, leather, and hay (people who don’t love horses just don’t get it).

Because one of the outcomes of being in flow is absolute joy and happiness, the sense of joy and happiness alone can create the conditions for flow. Sadness, too, when coupled with resilience and grit can be a flow trigger.

However you subscribe, thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Photo credit: ID 19599539 © Vladimirs Prusakovs | Dreamstime.com]

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I took off for about a week to travel to where I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I’m rested and ready to resume my writing.

This article is about how a perceived threat to safety can trigger flow. When you perceive that your safety or the safety of others is compromised, and you are prepared and in alignment mentally, physically, and spiritually, you drop into flow.

When unexpected events occur, and we are not prepared, people can get hurt or worse. Here is an example:

Dr. Joe, a chiropractor and volunteer firefighter from the suburbs of Atlanta, was involved in an incident where fireworks were being set off at a party at a friend’s home on the lake. His family was with him. Joe was experienced in setting off fireworks and had taken the time to learn the proper way to be safe around them.

Here is his story:

Prior to the fireworks display, I decided to wander down to the lake’s edge from where the fireworks were going to be launched. I noticed that the man designated to light the fireworks had set them up with the fuses all hanging out of the boxes so he could just light them and throw them into the Sonotubes®.

As I evaluated the situation, I determined that the crowd was too close to the display. I went back to my family and told them to back up. They resisted my urging. I tried to explain to my wife, “These things are too powerful. They are professional grade. If one of these falls out of the tube, it could blow up and hurt somebody.”

No sooner than I tried to explain, one of the fireworks popped out about five feet from its Sonotube, dropped back down to the platform where the other not-yet-staged fireworks were, and burst open. All 430 fireworks were surrounded by boxes. When the first one blew up, the ones lined up on a rock wall ready to be lit started to go off. They blew up and shot towards the crowd.

When the first one exploded, everything felt like slow motion. I watched and thought, “This is going to be interesting.” But when it burst open, all I could see was a gigantic flash of flame. I yelled out to everyone, “Run, run, run!”

My instinct was to run. But I suddenly realized, “I’ve got my whole family here.” I turned around and grabbed my kids and started running.

As I did that, I noticed a tall propane canister that the party hosts were using for cooking. I dove and knocked over the canister. I felt like I was in a war. I threw my son behind a little doghouse to keep him safe.

Finally, everything finished igniting.

In this situation, Dr. Joe’s trigger was the initial explosion and the instinct to save himself. Yet, because of his firefighter training and his situational awareness, he was able to drop into flow, prioritize his actions, and take care of his family as well as be aware of other potential dangers (e.g., the propane canister).

However you subscribe, thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman offers a model of how we perceive events and respond accordingly. He submits that the mind is divided into two systems he calls System 1 and System 2.

• System 1 operates instinctively and spontaneously, without a sense of intention.

• System 2 allocates attention toward more complex situations, when the consideration of choice is involved.

System 1 tends to be reductionist. System 1 thinking makes you see the world as uncomplicated and predictable. Day-to-day activities that require muscle memory and rote thinking work well in System 1. For example, if someone asks you, “What is one plus one?”, you will instantly respond, “Two.” However, if they ask you, “What is 3764 times 465?”, you will have to pull up your calculator app on your phone or write it out long-hand.

• System 1 thinking results in “narrow framing” of our perception of events, causing us to limit the number of choices to a few, rather than enabling us to look at the broader picture, which may yield many more possibilities.

• System 2 assists in “broad framing,” which allows us to see the complexity in the event or activity and recognize a broader range of options and possibilities. Experience facilitates broad framing.

Complexity is the trigger.

For example, for my doctoral study, Batallion Chief David Rhodes, told me a story about being in command of a complex, multiday incident where a large metropolitan hospital that had lost its water supply. But he was confident in the knowledge his team brought to the situaton. He said,

I knew nothing about running a hospital. What we [firefighters] are good at is breaking the problems down into manageable pieces and knowing what to call them. We may not know exactly how to accomplish what needs to be done, but we know how to identify who in the organization would probably be the key person.

We set up the command structure and got rid of two-thirds of the people that were there, keeping just the key folks. We developed a really quick plan. In a fire department we have operations, which would be somebody who was familiar with all the tactics and strategies that we use to fight fire. Our plan was to determine how to keep the hospital running and how we would evacuate the hospital and transfer 1,200 patients, if it came to that.

The ability to take a complex situation and develop a system to address it comes from the experience of knowing when you are in that position, you cannot 100% rely on the information you get. You have to use your gut instinct from your experience, so that you can recover when something unexpected happens.

Flow is neutral, that is, neither positive nor negative. In addition, being in a flow state does not guarantee the appropriate experience. However, according to Csikszentmihalyi in his book The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium, studies have shown that “many of our social problems are due to a lack of flow in everyday life.” The more complex a person’s consciousness, the greater the contribution to harmony in the person’s life and in the world.

Complexity of consciousness is a function of knowledge, cognition, feelings, and actions. It involves being aware and in control of your unique potential. It involves creating harmony between goals and desires, sensations and experiences for yourself and for others. Flow enables you to have a more fulfilling life and to create a better future.

No matter how you choose to subscribe, thanks for reading.

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

Class #44, November 2011. The first image I took of a GSD class. [Photo credit: Judith Glick-Smith]

Today is the start of Class #67 of the Georgia Smoke Diver (GSD) Association—and I am experiencing severe FOMO, since I’m not there.

Note: You can follow Class #67 by clicking the link.

My association with GSD has changed my life and how I viewed leadership and decision-making. I have taken almost 50,000 images of this extreme, experiential training program in Fire and EMS in the period from 2011‒2020. Over the years, I have wondered how best to honor the men and women of that organization.

I toyed with creating a coffee table book, but then struggled with how to bound it. When I started observing them, there were 790 Georgia Smoke Divers. There are 1222 Georgia Smoke Divers as of today, November 16, 2025. At the end of this week, there will be 1240, plus or minus a few. The task of deciding who to include is just too daunting.

It occurred to me today—since they are top of mind for me—that through my Substack platform, I can share my journey with the GSDs who had the greatest impact on me (and there are a lot of them).

Stay tuned.

All the best to the Class #67 candidates. Stay focused. Stay in the present. Concentrate on the evolution you are on. You got this.

No matter how you subscribe, thank you for reading.

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Photo credit: ID 37245542 | Church © Rik Trottier | Dreamstime.com]

“Size-up” is a term that is used in public service to describe the act of evaluating a situation prior to deciding to act. In Flow and Physics, I called it “creative suspension”—that is, stopping—even for just a moment—to take in and quickly assess the situation prior to acting. The time it takes to size up a situation is not static. It might be very quick—a nano-second—or it could take much longer.

Most things we do from day to day are routine. Our tasks depend on being able to recognize familiar situations and patterns, and, then based on this recognition, we can act according to experience or training.

For example, Margurite Gay Jones, Batallion Chief (Ret.) in the Sacramento (California) Fire Department told me about a church fire call her department got at 2:00 a.m. She wasn’t feeling well and was half-asleep, but her brain kicked in.

I had to travel a good distance to get to the fire. Headquarters was at one end of the district and the fire was at the other end. I was trying to get there as quickly and safely as I could. I could hear everything that was happening on the air. When I arrived, I noticed that it was the classic church fire with the big V roof. The whole back end was on fire. Everything was happening very fast; time felt felt like slo-mo.

There was a captain who was acting as incident commander until I showed up and took over incident command. The captain was one of those young kids—we call them “2-at-20”—2 years on and they think they have 20. He told me, “Chief, I got two [firefighters] going in this door…” and so on. He was a problem captain for me because he thought he knew everything, and he didn’t. He was hollering in my ear about what he was doing.

I looked at that fire and said, “No. It’s been burning too long and too hot.” He said, “But we can do…” And I said, “No. It’s been burning too long and too hot. Evacuate the building.” I got on the air and I said, “Alert. Alert. We’re going defensive mode. Everyone evacuate. All crews evacuate the building and in one minute we will have a roll call.” A minute later, we did a roll call. Everyone was accounted for. About two minutes later, the building started to collapse. Everyone was standing around watching and saying, “Oh, holy shit! Look at that!”

When I spoke with several of the folks, many of whom were in my assigned station, they said that they couldn’t understand why I gave the order to evacuate. They said, “We were inside and it was smoky and it was a little hot, but we were getting water on the fire.” I remember one guy saying, “You said that and we couldn’t understand it, but we went ahead and pulled out. When we came out of the front and looked at the back, we said ‘Thank God we’re out of here!’”

This was a situation where I had an inexperienced captain yapping at me. I had crews inside who obey orders on the fire scene. My 20+ years of experience kicked in. I recognized that this was a classic church fire. I knew that I was going to have an early collapse because the church had so much air in the alcove. The whole church is so open. It sounds so simple, but all that came to me at once—check, check, check, check, check. I knew that the church was a goner, but nobody got hurt.

Jones’ decision was based on her 20 years of experience and her training. She sized up the scene in seconds, immediately recognized the patterns (e.g., fire behavior and building construction), and took command of the situation. Fortunately, she also had a team that was willing to defer to her command to evacuate.

Recognition-Primed Decision Model (RPDM)

In the mid-1980s, Gary Klein studied firefighters and military personnel and how they used their experience to make decisions in field settings. His recognition-primed decision model (RPDM), was developed based on these field studies of the way that experienced personnel actually make decisions. The model explains how you can use experience to react rapidly and make good decisions without having to contrast options. The model has been tested and supported by research teams working in a variety of settings.

RPDM is used by people with experience who use mental simulation, a deliberate, conscious process that helps the person understand the situation and develop an explanation based on previous training and experience. We recognize patterns that remind us of previous events.

[The Recognition-Primed Decision Model. Used with permission.]

In Sources of power: How people make decisions, Klein writes, “Usually we will scan each explanation to see if there are elements that do not seem plausible, so we can reject the less likely ones and keep the best.” By constructing mental simulations, also known as story models, or slides, for each iteration of experience, we are better able to respond quickly to events. Klein found that “fireground commanders showed that when they did need to evaluate a course of action, they used the strategy of mental simulation.”

Maximizing the ability to utilize this flow trigger is one of the most important reasons for funding experiential training in public service, as well as all other organizations.

No matter how you subscribe, thank you for reading.

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

This is me. I’m thinking, “What in the heck am I doing?” [Photo credit: David Rhodes]

Being aware in the moment is the act of “presencing.” Awareness, especially comprehensive situational awareness, is necessary to enable you to guide the dynamics in a situation. It has to happen at multiple levels. You have to be aware of internal feelings and your physical well-being, the presence of others in the environment, and the environment itself. There is no sequential cause-and-effect dynamic between awareness and action. They are one and the same.

My Own Lesson in Siituation Awareness

I observed my first Georgia Smoke Diver training in November 2011. It was early in the week. The candidates were learning how to use thermal imaging cameras (TICs) in a smoke-filled burn building. Smoke Daddy David Rhodes (GSD #339) asked me if I wanted to go into the burn building. At first, I said, “No.” But then I thought about it. How would I ever really know what they experience, if I didn’t suit up and go in? I changed my mind and said, “Yes.” The instructors had me in full gear before I could protest. Into the burn building I went, with one of the instructors, Captain Charlie Long (GSD #552).

Charlie ‘n me (Charlie’s the tall one.) [Photo credit: David Rhodes]

Everything I had been hearing from all the firefighters in my doctoral study came at me in a rush. I had 70 pounds of gear on my body. At the time, I was not in good physical shape. I felt completely encumbered. All my senses were stripped away. The mask prevented me from tasting or smelling. I couldn’t see for all the smoke. I couldn’t feel anything because of the gloves. I couldn’t hear, because the noise in the burn building was confusing. In a building that is burning, firefighters have told me, the noise can be deafening.

While I am not generally claustrophobic, I felt like I was closed in. I realized that my being frightened was causing me to breathe air too fast. I wasn’t in the building 30 seconds before I said, “Charlie, I have to leave.” He said, “No. No. Look through your TIC. What do you see?” I looked. I could see other firefighters through the smoke. I couldn’t see them without the camera.

Charlie then said, “Look down through the TIC. What do you see?” I looked down at an angle and saw another firefighter, but this was confusing, because of the angle I was looking. Charlie said, “That’s your reflection in a mirror. Now look over there. What do you see?” I told him it looked like a hole. He said, “That’s the hallway. Let’s go down to the burn room.”

We made our way to the room where the fire was burning. Charlie told me to look through the TIC to get the temperature reading. At eye level, the temperature was a little over 300 degrees Fahrenheit. He then told me to point the camera to the ceiling and take another reading. The TIC read over 600 degrees Fahrenheit (still cool, by firefighters’ standards). I felt my internal body temperature begin to rise. Fear overtook me again.

I said, “Charlie, I need to leave.” Charlie said, “Okay. But we can’t go back the way we came. Others have come in behind us. We have to go down the stairs to go out.” I was near panic at this point. I said, not so calmly, “Down the stairs!! Are you crazy!?” He calmly said, “No. No. Look through the TIC. What do you see?” I said, “Another hallway.” He said, “Now, look down. What do you see?” I looked. It appeared to be a hole in the floor. He said, “Those are the stairs.” I suddenly realized the amazing dangers firefighters face on a daily basis, never knowing if the next step will have them plunging into darkness to their deaths.

I made my way down the stairs slowly and carefully, and then out of the building. In all, I spent a total of 15 minutes in the burn building.

Long was an amazing coach. As I turned inward in fear, he refocused me outward. The urge to submit to a panicked state, to rip off my face mask, was huge, but Long helped me resist. That is how many firefighters die in fires, he told me. When I exited, my paradigm had changed dramatically. It is one thing to listen to people tell you their stories. It is another thing to experience what they mean by awareness.

The takeaway was that in emergency situations, firefighters must be situationally aware of themselves (internally), their surroundings, the dynamics of the fire or other relevant variables (individual people, crowds, weather conditions, construction of the building, etc.), and also be able to conduct a search for victims, if necessary. Every incident is different. And yet, there are repeating patterns within each incident that, over time, enable firefighters to act in a way that facilitates their ability to respond in the best way possible. However, they must be willing and able to constantly train, learn about past incidents, and unemotionally deconstruct, discuss, and evaluate incidents immediately following the action with fellow first responders. This enables them to learn what happened (from others’ perspectives) and to determine what they might have done differently to affect the best outcome.

Flow happens in the present. While, awareness is key throughout all the categories of flow triggers, practicing mindfulness enables you to be present and aware within the moment. This, in turn, enables you to recognize patterns, identify complexity, and balance and synchronize activity and challenge. When you begin to learn what triggers flow for you, you can begin to put into place the conditions that bring about flow, thereby maximizing your flow experiences.

In H. L. Thompson’s book, The Stress Effect: Why Smart Leaders Make Dumb Decisions—And What To Do About It, “awareness” is the first best practice in managing stress in Thompson’s ARSENAL™ model for maintaining a stress resilient system.

[Used with permission]

When concentrating on the task at hand and through observation in each moment, you can allow awareness and action to merge. This is true not only when you are in flow doing what you love, but even in your day-to-day interactions in your personal life. Learning to be present and aware is a skill that can be learned, practiced, and improved over time with training and experience.

No matter how you subscribe, thank you for reading.

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

Melissa Russell, GSD #976, Class #53, February 2017
[photo credit: Dr. Judith Glick-Smith]

Melissa’s Story

The Georgia Smoke Diver (GSD) program has been in existence since 1978 and is an extreme, experiential, intensive, six-day training program for structural firefighters.

This is the story of Melissa Russell, a firefighter in the Dalton, Georgia, Fire Department. She had a dream to become a Georgia Smoke Diver.

No woman had completed the program since 1993. She trained for three years with her colleagues who had already gone through the program. The first time she went through, in 2016, she didn’t make it. But she kept going.

She enrolled in GSD Class 53 in February 2017. On Day 1 of the training, the class elected her as class leader, a role she retained the entire class, which was unusual.

What was even more stunning was that she was sick all week. Anyone who got near her knew she was not well. She had difficulty breathing as she went through the various drills. But she kept pushing through. Her classmates encouraged her relentlessly as evidenced in this story of her completion of the Denver Drill.

Sidebar: A Description of the Denver Drill

The Denver Drill
[photo credit: Dr. Judith Glick-Smith]

The Denver Drill is based on a line of duty death that happened in Denver, Colorado, on September 28, 1992. In this incident, Mark Langvardt, a 16-year veteran of Fire & EMS and who worked at Truck Company 16, was separated from his crew. Mark was trapped in a storage room, which only had a 28-inch-wide aisle in which to maneuver, when the building collapsed. The only way to save him was through a small window at one end of the room. Once they located Mark, firefighters threw a ladder to the window from the outside of the structure to rescue him. However, the confining space overwhelmed the rescuers’ attempts to complete the mission. Mark perished. The upside of this story is that out of Mark’s sacrifice was born the Denver Drill. Firefighters around the world know this story and practice the drill over and over, so that when this scenario happens again, the rescue will be successful.

The Denver Drill requires that the rescuer enter the 28-inch-wide space through the window at the end of the prop; package the downed, unconscious firefighter (i.e., prepare the firefighter to be moved); and then lift the firefighter up and out the window before exiting head-first down the ladder.

How Melissa Completed the Denver Drill

It was Melissa’s turn to practice the rescue. Her laboured breathing was painful to listen to. The firefighter she was trying to rescue was a big man. He was in full gear, which added about 70 pounds to the load. Melissa got him packaged, but then had to lift him out of the window.

Instructors from other drills came across the training ground to the Denver Drill location. They leaned over the Denver Drill prop to encourage Melissa. They formed a cocoon around her. “You’ve got this!” “Don’t you quit!” They were not going to let her fail. The energy around the prop was electric. Melissa pushed through, taking that energy from the supportive instructors, and completed the drill successfully.

She finished the class successfully and became GSD #976.

Melissa’s Account of Class #53 Six Months Later

At the next class, Melissa was a new instructor. She told me about her ability to be in flow the entire class as a student, even though she was sick. She said that other than getting breathing treatments in the evenings (the medical staff was monitoring her closely throughout the class), she was not aware of her illness. In fact, until she graduated, she did not notice how sick she really was. After graduation, an ambulance whisked her away to the hospital where she was diagnosed with double pneumonia.

How was she able to be in flow that entire week? She was not in alignment. She said that it was because she had committed to being Class Leader. She was responsible for the entire class. Her mission was clear. The other students looked to her for guidance. Her focus was purpose-driven and outward, not on herself. She transformed into flow and was able to sustain that feeling for six days.

Flow Triggers Category 1: Vision, Purpose, Mission, Goals, and Grit

The first characteristic of flow is that you have clear goals and are receiving feedback in the moment. Have an articulated vision. Being clear on your purpose—your “why.” Focusing on the mission (what you want to accomplish with the task at hand). This is what enables motivation and engagement. Your goals are your roadmap for the tactics for getting your projects and tasks to completion.

As you work toward your goals, you receive feedback. This feedback also serves as a trigger that tells you how to adjust in the moment.

In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance, Angela Duckworth defines “grit” as a combination of passion and perseverance directed towards long-term goals with no expectation of rewards or recognition along the way. According to Duckworth, grit involves maintaining a steadfast commitment to these goals despite challenges, setbacks, and slow progress. It is not about talent, luck, or momentary desire, but rather about having a deeply held goal that gives meaning to one’s efforts and persisting in the pursuit of that goal over extended periods of time.

Vision, purpose, mission, goals, grit, and the feedback you receive in the moment are all triggers of flow.

Melissa’s story is a powerful example of the value of preparation. She had prepared for the GSD class. She had committed herself mentally, physically, and spiritually to the task. She took advantage of the resources available to her to help in this preparation. The Georgia Smoke Divers of the Dalton Fire Department were not going to let her fail. Even though she had some physical misalignment with her illness, she was able to stay in flow because she had grit. She was mission and purpose-driven and she had a specific goal to work towards.

Another Fun Sidebar

Those white specs in the picture at the top of this Substack are GRITS that the instructors decided to shower Melissa with when she graduated. In the South, G.R.I.T.S. also stands for Girls Raised in The South! Just sayin’!

No matter how you subscribe, thank you for reading.

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Photo credit: ID 126969764 © Rawf88 | Dreamstime.com]

Now that we know the characteristics of flow and how flow works, let’s look at how flow is triggered. A flow trigger is anything that activates a flow state. Flow triggers are not the same as flow characteristics. The characteristics of flow simply describe the flow state; flow triggers initiate the flow state when conditions are right.

Because we each choose our own flow activities based on the meaning we attach to them, there is no definitive list of flow triggers that work for everyone. What triggers flow for you may or may not be a trigger for someone else. Also, as we saw in the last post, what triggers flow for you may not work every time.

What is a Flow Trigger

Flow triggers are events or conditions that cause you to experience flow. They are often tied to the senses. They can be visual, auditory, something that you tasted, something that you smelled, or associated with a place. They can also be a memory or a feeling. A flow trigger speaks to you in the moment and drops you into the now. It sets off something in you that pushes you forward. While most often flow happens at a subconscious level, we can learn to consciously trigger flow (more on that later). Flow triggers are derived from life purpose, self-knowledge, presencing, and situation awareness.

What are Your Flow Triggers?

Everyone’s triggers are different. And they will change over time because of the nature of flow. As you get better at doing something and are not challenged, you will eventually get bored. The flow trigger that once worked so well, no longer drops you into flow.

Flow triggers occur when you are situationally aware. You recognize patterns and notice when a challenge presents itself. You sense the opportunity and feel confident that you can prevail. You understand the context. The situation is complex. You are physically and psychologically ready. There is a component of stress moving you forward.

All these conditions can be honed as you become more aware of how flow is initiated for you so that you can begin to consciously trigger flow more often. You may not be able to predict the challenges that will present themselves, but the more you put yourself in new situations, the more confident you will be when you are presented with surprising encounters.

Categories of Flow Triggers

When I was collecting the stories of firefighters in my doctoral study and looking at decision making in the midst of a critical incident, I realized that all of the participants mentioned the trigger—i.e., what put them into flow. I was able to put these triggers into three categories related to their work in public safety:

• Something out of the ordinary

• A threat to personal safety

• Child involvement, particularly when the incident began with a woman in the driveway

Captain Marguerite Gay Jones (Ret.) of the Sacramento, California, Fire Department, told me a story about a woman standing in the driveway who was not hysterical.

She was just standing out in the parking lot and pointing up to the room. Everything happened in a nano-second. SIDS calls are really sad. It was weird because you usually hear the mom screaming before you even get off the rig. This mother appeared unconscious. When we went up to the room, there was another weird vibe. There was a man in the apartment. He was just pacing back and forth. He pointed to the baby’s room. When we ran into the bedroom, we saw this baby, who was maybe one year old. The baby was unresponsive. I remember knowing right away that this was really weird. It was one of the first shaken baby syndrome incidences in our county.

Csikszentmihalyi observed that conditions of shock and crisis accentuate flow. However, most of us do not live in a world where shock and crisis are the moment-by-moment norm. Those who do, such as first responders and military personnel, spend their non-emergency time preparing for surprising and unexpected events that require rapid intervention.

Because the rest of us are not acutely concerned with life and death decisions, we tend to not be as troubled with preparing for the unexpected, often to our detriment. In everyday life, the categories of flow triggers expands, as follows:

• Vision, purpose, mission, goals, and grit

• Presencing and awareness

• Size-up and pattern recognition

• Complexity

• Perceived threat to personal, team, or community safety

• Stress

• Sensory and emotional activation

• Place and time

• Consciously triggered flow

The next few posts will go into more detail about these categories of flow triggers.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Judy

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you would ordinarily experience flow, but for one reason or another, flow doesn’t happen? Situational awareness facilitates the ability to recognize when this happens, and experiential knowledge enables us to consciously initiate flow. Stress can cause people to shut down, especially when they have high levels of inhibition and low cognitive ability.

Case Study

Rick, the head of cybersecurity in a large organization, did not feel “on,” either physically, emotionally, or psychologically. He had a lot going on in his personal life and his work environment was very high stress. There were attacks on the system almost daily. He felt like he was moving in slow motion, but he did not feel tuned in to all that was happening around him. There had been a hack to the enterprise system that operations depended on. In addition, the administrator who had been assigned to monitor their security systems had gone on maternity leave and was unavailable. The stand-in resource was not as proficient in the security policies and procedures. There were multiple systems failures, all of which had to be handled simultaneously. Rick analysed the damage, but it took him a while to recognize what the problem was. His instructions to his people were vague and indirect, which led to questions and conjecture. This impacted the event, but his people managed to step up and solve the issue successfully.

Rick knew that he was not feeling his A-game, but he was not aware of how out of sorts his decision making was until his team and he did a post-event review. He admitted that his performance was not up to par, and his team confirmed that he was struggling. However, because his team had been trained to manage this type of event, they were able to step in and do what needed to be done. He expressed his gratitude to them for their individual and team performance. They used the review process to maintain transparency in decision making and to learn from mistakes without assigning blame.

How to Reconize When Flow Doesn’t Happen

Notice the holistic nature of what was wrong. Everything was out of whack. This happens to all of us from time to time. Just to be clear, this does not represent “negative flow.” Flow is neutral; it is neither positive nor negative. For example, someone who derives joy from deviant behavior may experience flow while acting in an aberrant way. Either you are “in flow” or you are not.

Impact of Preparatory Activities

Preparatory activities often do not trigger flow. For example, there are firefighters who are not particularly enamoured with certain aspects of being prepared, such as maintaining equipment or doing heavy physical training (PT) early in the morning. However, they also know that if they are ready to respond physically with fully operational equipment—which will help facilitate a flow state—then those seemingly menial tasks are worthy of their time and energy.

At a personal level, you may intellectually know that if you go to the gym early in the morning and work out for 45 minutes, you feel better during the day. Your energy level is strong, and your mind is sharp. In addition, there are the side benefits of lowering your cholesterol and levelling out your blood pressure, so that you do not have to take medication. This enables your emotional and mental bandwidth to expand. You have “room” to put yourself in challenging situations that stretch your skills—one of the preconditions of flow.

Conclusion

The feeling of being in flow is that of being at peace in any activity. It is that feeling of lightness, of moving without effort, of buoyancy: as if flying through the air or floating in water. However, if you continue to develop skills without increasing the complexity of the activity, you will eventually become bored. If the complexity of the activity increases faster than you can improve your skills, your anxiety level will increase.

The more flow experiences you have, the happier and more satisfied with life you will be. The feeling is contagious. Through example, you show others what flow looks like. This impacts your coworkers, your family, and your community. Flow does not always happen. But when flow does not happen, training and experience help facilitate right decision making.

*******

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Judy

[Georgia Smoke Diver Class #51—Candidates learning to package a downed firefighter with instructor supervision. Photo credit: Judith Glick-Smith]

The Role of Preparation

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman defines cognitive strain as being “affected by both the current level of effort and the presence of unmet demands.” Cognitive strain negatively impacts creativity and intuition, but it can be mitigated through preparation.

Preparation is about readiness. People who understand how flow works, spend the time to prepare themselves, even if preparation activities don’t put them in a flow state. Preparation refers to training—especially experiential training—and to experience. It refers to taking care of knowing how to use the tools of your trade. It refers to rehearsing—repeating the activity until it is ingrained in you at cellular level. The activity is so familiar to you that, when you are challenged by something out of the ordinary, you can continue to function at an optimal level with confidence while addressing the challenge.

Case Study: Georgia Smoke Diver

When I went back to school for my doctorate, I was interested in how people make decisions. While reading the literature on transformation (my PhD is in Transformative Studies), I discovered the idea of flow. I wondered if being in a flow state facilitated decision making. What I found was that the answer is “yes” but only if one has had the right experiences and the right experiential training.

One of the participants in my study was Battlion Chief David Rhodes of Atlanta Fire Rescue. At the time, he also happened to be the “Smoke Daddy” and Chief Elder of the Georgia Smoke Diver Program, an extreme, experiential training program in Fire & EMS. After I published my dissertation, he invited me to a GSD training.

Muscle memory is critical in the work of a firefighter. Every incident is different. The GSD program focuses on drilling candidates on both basic and not-so-basic activities over and over to give them the edge to deal with anomalies that occur in emergent activites.

Drills are taught incrementally. Instuction begins with the basics, the mechanics of how a task is done, in an open, stress-free environment. Later during the class, students must complete the same drills in a simulated fireground scenario with the addition of smoke, fire, zero visibility, running water, and loud noises.

The GSD leadership believes they have anticdotal evidence that shows this class gives firefighters seven years of experience in six days and prepares them for optimal performance in the face of the unexpected.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Judy

[Georgia Smoke Diver #399 and Brunswick (GA) Fire Department Chief Jerry Allen (ret.) in flow on the boat he uses for his crabbing business. Photo credit: Judy Glick-Smith]

First, A Story About a Man Who Lives in Flow

In 2013, Chief Jerry Allen invited me to come go crabbing with him in the brackish waters near Brunswick, Georgia. Jerry is a wonderful, happy, teddybear of a man, who has retired multiple times from the fire department (they kept asking him to come back). I met him while I was observing the Georgia Smoke Diver program and we became fast friends.

Jerry has a crabbing business in addition to his work at the Brunswick Fire Department. I decided to take him up on his invitation to go crabbing. I had no idea what I was in for. When we pushed away from the dock, the sun was just starting to rise. The river was quiet and beautiful as we made our way out to where Jerry had set his 200+ traps. It suddenly dawned on me that this was Jerry’s happy place. I could see it on his face. He was in flow from the moment we got into the boat until he and his helper finished checking all the traps six hours later. Jerry had crafted a life for himself where he could maximize his flow states.

This post is the first of three that describe the mechanics of flow, so that you can begin to recognize how to sustain and how to maximize your flow states over time.

How Flow Works

Flow happens when your skills are in alignment with the challenges presented within the activity. When your skill level is greater than the challenge encountered within the task, you disengage or become bored or disengaged. On the other hand, when the challenge is greater than your skill level, you may become overwhelmed or anxious. Anxiety and boredom both pull you out of flow.

The flow sweet spot—what Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi calls the “flow channel”—is that point where challenge and skills are well-matched. At this point, you experience a sense of flow, where you are fully engaged and deeply immersed in the activity.

In addition, flow is tied to specific conditions and meanings that are unique to you, including how well you are prepared and whether you are in alignment—physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Who Experiences Flow

Flow doesn’t happen for everyone. There are those who may never experience flow. For example, some schizophrenics do not have the ability to feel pleasure or joy. Because flow has a feel-good component, it is difficult for these people to enter flow. In addition, people who are excessively self-absorbed and concerned about what others think may be unable to lose themselves in an activity. Because their focus is directed toward excessively worrying about what others are thinking, these people lack the psychic energy necessary to enter a flow experience. Other than these groups, most people can enter flow states. But what must be in place for this to happen?

We each choose our own flow activities, based on the meaning we attach to them. Flow occurs at the intersection of the activity’s challenge level and our abilities to meet those challenges. In other words, to enter into flow, we must balance challenges and skill at a high level, while receiving feedback within and about the activity. Situation awareness, high cognitive ability, low inhibition, and high emotional intelligence enable you to act with confidence from a place of knowing. It isn’t easy to transform into flow, but you can improve your ability to do so. I will cover this in a subsequent post.

What are the Preconditions for Flow

Flow can happen at any time. We all strive for these states, consciously or unconsciously. We have goals, whether we actively acknowledge them or not. There are always an infinite number of opportunities to act decisively. As we receive immediate feedback from our decisions, awareness and action become one, enabling focus. When we let ourselves move into that space where we do the activity for its own sake, we move out of self-consciousness and into a feeling of control. There is no sense of time.

Preconditions are dependent on the individual as are the triggers that initiate flow. In addition, all flow activities are transformative. The more flow experiences you have, the more multifaceted you become.

How Flow Works

Csikszentmihalyi devotes an entire chapter to the mechanics of flow in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He explains the process of how we move in and out of flow. Flow activities lead to growth and discovery. However, we can’t enjoy an activity at the same level for long. Eventually, we get bored. When we reach the level of boredom, we can either transfer our energies to a new, more challenging activity, or we can hone our skills and return to the original activity to try something more challenging. When we look for more challenging activities, we experience anxiety until we reach a level of confidence that throws us back into a flow state—and the process starts again. The following illustration shows how this works.

What Can You Do to Stay in Flow

When you work on an activity over time, you get better and better at it until it becomes so repetitive, it is boring. As soon as you notice that the work is boring, look around for new ways to introduce new challenges. Learn something new; learn a new tool; try a different method.

Conversely, if you find yourself in the middle of an activity where things are going wonderfully, but suddenly, something comes at you that you have never seen or experienced before, you become anxious. Ask yourself, “What can I do to mitigate this anxiety? If I had planned better, would I have recognized that this could have happened? How can I keep this from happening again?” Take a class; train with others on the tasks and get their feedback on your performance; try forecasting what might happen the next time you are doing that activity and plan your responses.

Often events in our lives and the activities we engage in are emergent in nature. That means that decisions often need to be made concurrently, rather than sequentially. Stress can have a significant impact on your decision-making ability. Situation awareness is what facilitates your ability to stay in flow.

For now, in terms of the mechanics of flow, anything that produces anxiety within an activity can derail your ability to work in flow. Practicing mindfulness and staying consciously aware of your surroundings, your environment, the tools you are using, and the task at hand will facilitate the ability to stay in flow. You must also be cognizant of and confidently address the challenges that arise moment by moment.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Composer Eric Glick Rieman. Photo Credit: Judith Glick-Smith]

Autotelic refers to the idea that one acts for the sake of doing. Autotelic experience represents a state of intrinsic motivation, self-direction, and inner fulfilment produced by engaging in the activity itself. When you experience an activity that is independent of external rewards or consequences, you find deep satisfaction and meaning in doing the activity for its own sake. The flow experience is ultimately satisfying and enjoyable. You are fully immersed in the activity. There is a sense of belonging, a feeling of being in exactly the right place at the right time.

Deep immersion in an activity is driven by a fundamental desire to challenge yourself, explore your capabilities, and pursue personal growth and mastery. One of the key features of an autotelic experience is the alignment between your skills and the challenges presented by the activity—what Csikszentmihalyi describes as the “flow channel,” which I will talk about in my next post.

An autotelic experience is marked by a sense of personal agency and autonomy. You feel a sense of ownership and control over your actions, as you are free to make choices and pursue your goals in alignment with your values and interests. This sense of autonomy fosters a deep sense of empowerment and fulfilment, as you can express yourself authentically and pursue your passions with purpose and conviction.

For example, one of the firefighters I interviewed in my doctoral study described firefighting as a calling. He said:

It was always a desire and a love. It was a calling. It has been spectacular. There were a lot of terrible times, but a lot of great times. Even with the bad times, it’s still good. It’s the greatest job on earth. It’s such a rewarding thing showing little kids fires. All of that goes hand in hand. That is what keeps me going.

An autotelic experience is not limited to any activity or domain. It can manifest in a wide range of contexts, from artistic endeavours and athletic pursuits to academic pursuits and everyday tasks. What matters is not the specific nature of the activity, but rather your subjective experience of engagement, absorption, and intrinsic satisfaction.

My cousin, Eric Glick Rieman is a composer. He plays many instruments and loves the creative process. His favorite instrument is an ambient experimental prepared and extended Rhodes electric piano. His projects are quite avant-garde. His doctoral study and resulting composition were a reimagining of this mother’s heart surgery. He once put five snails on a blank music score sheet and used their slime trails as the basis for a composition. He is all about sounds and how they fit together. He is an amazing music teacher, who teaches his students to be creative, while providing a foundation in traditional music practices. He refers to his flow-state as “riding the wave of action,” where his creativity ebbs and flows throughout the composition process.

Here is an example of Eric composing in a flow state:

When you engage in activities that are inherently rewarding and enjoyable, you experience a deep sense of flow, where you are fully immersed in the present moment, challenged to your fullest potential, and driven by a sense of purpose and passion. By cultivating an autotelic mindset and seeking out activities that align with your interests and values, you can tap into the transformative power of flow and experience a greater sense of joy, fulfilment, and meaning in your life.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Firefighter Joel Kanasky (Ret.), Rescue 1, FDNY. Thank you for your stories.]

Time morphs when you are in a flow state. People who experience flow describe time as slowing down, speeding up, or that they have no concept of time. You become absorbed in the timeless rhythm of the activity. This timelessness is a testament to the depth of immersion and engagement that characterizes the flow state.

Temporal distortion in flow is subjective and often occurs stark contrast to objective time measurements. It is a key featureof the flow experience. Individuals in flow often report losing track of time altogether, becoming completely absorbed in the present moment and the demands of the task at hand.

One aspect of temporal distortion in flow is the feeling of time speeding up. When individuals are fully engaged in an activity that challenges their skills and captivates their attention, they often report that time seems to fly by rapidly. Hours can pass by in what feels like minutes, as individuals become completely absorbed in the flow of the activity, losing themselves in the rhythm of their actions and thoughts.

Firefighter Joel Kanasky (retired) of FDNY, a survivor of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center related his experience of time speeding up this way:

I had no idea about the amount of time passing. I didn’t even know, until the sun went down, that it was in the evening.

In the next couple of weeks and months, when we were talking about things, we realized there were events after the initial two collapses that morning. Number 7 collapsed at around 6:00 in the evening. We had stopped for our first chow break. There was a guy cutting bologna with a loaf of white bread and a big jar of mustard on a garbage can on the street. He was handing us sandwiches. I remember that.

There was no sense of time whatsoever. It could have been just like when I walked into the lobby. The South tower had just collapsed. We had made one runaway. We went back into the North tower. It was actually close to 47 minutes in between the two buildings falling, but it felt like it was a blink of an eye.

Conversely, temporal distortion in flow can also involve the feeling of time slowing down. In certain flow experiences, individuals may perceive time as stretching out, with each moment feeling prolonged and rich with detail. This sense of time dilation can occur when you are faced with intense challenges or heightened sensory experiences that demand your full attention. In these moments, you may become hyper-aware of your surroundings and internal states, experiencing a heightened sense of presence and mindfulness. This slowing down of time reflects the deepening of engagement and connection with the present moment, as you become fully attuned to the nuances of your experience.

Battalion Chief Paige Colwell of the Forsyth County, Georgia, Fire Department, related one of the most descriptive accounts of an altered sense of time. She arrived on the scene of a house fire, where a woman was screaming in the driveway. Paige knew that this meant there was probably a child inside. She grabbed the hose and waited for it to charge (i.e., fill with water). She could still hear the woman screaming in the driveway.

I remember everything slowing for me. It was like I took in everything at once. It was like watching a hummingbird’s wings slow to where you could see the individual beats. It was an instant. I know it was just an instant that I dropped the hose line and went in.

She made her way down the hallway. There was so much smoke, she was crawling and feeling her way. The woman in the driveway had told her where the “baby” was. Her baby turned out to be a 5-foot, 8-inch, 135-pound, 33-year-old man.

I came down on his chest, and, when I pushed down, he breathed out. I heard him. Right at that point—and that was another moment that just slowed for me—just like hummingbird’s wings—the window to the bedroom was busted out by the guys from the outside, because I remember covering him and screaming, “I’ve got him in here!” I reached around, I sat him up, and I got around behind him and picked him up. I put my arms underneath him and wrapped around his chest and started to drag him to the window . . . [when the glass broke] I just remember throwing myself over the victim. It was almost like I could have picked out individual pieces of glass breaking.

Temporal distortion in flow is a subjective phenomenon that varies from individual to individual and from one flow experience to another—even when experiencing the same event. While some of us may consistently experience time speeding up or slowing down during flow, others may not perceive any significant changes in their sense of time. Additionally, the degree of temporal distortion in flow may depend on various factors such as the nature of the activity, the individual’s level of skill and expertise, and the intensity of their engagement.

Temporal distortion is a fascinating characteristic of flow that reflects the subjective experience of time alteration during optimal performance states. Whether time seems to speed up or slow down, temporal distortion reflects the deep immersion, intense focus, and heightened awareness that characterize the flow experience. By losing track of time and becoming fully absorbed in the present moment, you can achieve a state of optimal experience where you perform at your best and feel fully alive.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

Image: Worcester, Massachusetts, Cold Storage Warehouse Fire, December 3, 1999

In a flow state, you experience transcendence beyond your ego boundaries. There is a sense of growth and of being part of something greater than yourself. Because you are so absorbed in the activity, your sense of self-awareness diminishes, and you merge with the task at hand leaving more psychic energy to concentrate on what needs to be done.

Boundaries between the self and external environment blur. This leads to a dissolution of ego boundaries and creates a sense of unity with the activity. The worries, insecurities, and preoccupations of the day disappear as you become fully absorbed into the present moment. You feel profoundly free and liberated as you become fully immersed in flow.

You experience a heightened sense of focus and concentration. From this place of intensity, you can enter a state of “pure consciousness,” where you are fully present and engaged in the here and now, free from the distractions of the past or future.

However, the loss of sense of self in flow is not a form of dissociation or detachment but rather a deepening of engagement and connection with the present moment. You feel connected with the activity, as if you are in dialogue with it, responding intuitively to its demands and rhythms. This sense of connection fosters a deep sense of meaning and purpose, as you feel aligned with something greater than yourself.

The loss of sense of self in flow is enriched by a sense of unity and interconnectedness with others and the world around us. You experience a sense of belonging and oneness with your environment, as if you are in harmony with the universe. This sense of interconnectedness fosters a deep sense of empathy and compassion, as you feel a kinship with all living beings.

My facination with firefighters and EMTs is that they make no judgments about the “other.” What sets them apart is their compassion. The firefighter/EMT helps without preudice or attribution. There are no labels placed on the people (or animals) in jeopardy. They are called to save lives.

Retired District Chief Michael McNamee (Worcester, Massachusetts, Fire Department) told me about the aftermath of the incident he was involved in when his department lost six firefighters at a cold warehouse fire on December 3, 1999. The fire was started by a homeless couple who managed to get out of the building, unbeknownst to the fire department. Incident command assumed that people were trapped inside the warehouse and initiated the search to rescue them. Chief McNamee recounted:

Our chief was actually questioned back then, “Why did your men go in there looking for homeless people?” In a very calm and dignified manner, [the chief] responded: “We don’t do a sociological analysis before we go into a situation.”

A situation calls for a certain action. That’s what we are trained to do. That’s what we do. That’s who we are. That’s why we do it. We don’t care if you’re rich. We don’t care if you’re poor. We don’t care color. We don’t care religion. If you need us, that’s what we do for a living. In our job, if you are in it long enough, for most people, it becomes a large part of who you are, even outside the job.

The Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse Fire had far reaching implications. I have yet to talk to a firefighter who is not familiar with the Worcester fire. McNamee was involved as an incident commander on this incident, and was the one who ultimately made the decision to change the mission from rescue to recovery, and not send in anymore firefighters to look for the ones who were lost. He was also the one the chief asked to do the press briefing after the fire was extinguished, three days later. When he asked the chief how he should handle the press, the chief told him, “Tell them what happened.” McNamee was relieved that the department was going to be open about what happened.

There is a tendency to go into bunker mode. A lot of departments try to hide what happened. We didn’t do anything wrong that night. We fought that fire the way we fought a thousand others, and the building just beat us. We were an open book right from the beginning. This attitude really helped us get through this. Here’s what happened. Here’s how it went down. Honesty is the best policy.

The loss of sense of self encapsulates the transcendence of ego boundaries and the deepening of engagement and connection with the present moment. This loss of self-consciousness allows you to enter a state of pure consciousness, where you are fully absorbed in the activity and experience a profound sense of liberation, connection, and meaning.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Chief Benjamin M. Barksdale passed away on April 26, 2025. R.I.P., Chief. Thank you for your stories.]

This characteristic of flow encapsulates the sense of mastery and autonomy, a feeling of empowerment to navigate the challenges that you face in the activity with a sense of self-assurance and agency. Flow experiences give you the sense that you are in control and not worried about losing control.

While confidence is not directly named as one of Csikszentmihalyi’s characteristics of flow, it is a byproduct of feeling as if you can exercise control in difficult situations, which leads to a heightened sense of efficacy and accomplishment. You feel empowered to make choices and take actions that align with your goals and values, which allow you to assert control over your experiences and outcomes. This sense of autonomy fosters a deep sense of ownership and responsibility, as you feel personally invested in the pursuit of your objectives.

Ben Barksdale, former Chief of Prince George’s County, Maryland, Fire and Emergency Medical Services, was a firefighter at the Pentagon on 9/11, where he and his crew had to work for 36 hours straight. When I asked him what kept him going during that time and still manage to get the job done, at first, he said, “Adrenalin,” but he followed with

How you are trained. If a person is confident in how they have been trained and what they have been trained on and, as long as they are successful in carrying out the mission, everything is just moving along. I think it is when things don’t go well, if you are not able to complete a lot of objectives or whatever the assignments are, then you start reflecting on the negative. You get frustrated and that is where you are not effective, so there is no flow.

Feeling confident and in control is a dynamic state facilitated by knowledge. You must remain open to feedback and adaptable to changing circumstances, which gives you the ability to adjust strategies and responses as needed to maintain your flow state. This flexibility enables you to navigate uncertainty and complexity with resilience and grace, enhancing your overall sense of competence and self-assurance.

Battalion Chief Paige Colwell of the Forsyth County, Georgia, Fire Department tempered her comments about confidence by saying she monitors herself for feelings of over-confidence:

As soon as you think you are good at something, something will happen to show you that you are not God. You might be good at something, but there are going to be situations where the best you can do is not going to happen—like when trying to mitigate a pulmonary embolism—It doesn’t matter what I do. It’s going to end up in a bad way, even with your best efforts. You can’t get everything right; there’s nothing you can do.

Challenge and risk coexist with the feelings of confidence and control. When you embrace challenges and setbacks as opportunities for growth and learning, you can view them as integral aspects of the flow experience, further strengthening confidence and the sense of control as you navigate the ebb and flow of life’s challenges.

Moreover, the feeling of being confident and in control in flow is enriched by a sense of presence and mindfulness. You are fully engaged in the present moment, attuned to the nuances of your experience and responsive to the demands of the task. This heightened state of awareness enhances your ability to perceive and respond to opportunities and threats, further reinforcing your sense of confidence and mastery.

Richard B. Gasaway, Ph.D., retired Fire Chief of Roseville, Minnesota, Fire Department, told me a story about being the first to arrive and observing a “big fire in a big building.” He said he had one of two choices, “that was to freak out or the other one was to get into the zone and do what I have been taught to do.” He was aware of his feelings in the situation and consciously calmed himself down. All of his communications were calm and direct. He validated this when he listened to the tapes following the incident. His experience with this fire gave him confidence in later incidents.

This was the biggest fire of my career, and I can’t even describe how I knew what to do, but I did. It flowed like I was an orchestra leader leading an orchestra. I was ‘game on’ and just knew what to do, what to have other people do, and deal with all the little problems that were coming along the way. It just seemed like I was unshakable. I had a comfort level with commanding, but I didn’t have a comfort level of commanding an incident of that size.

That particular incident influenced me in later incidents. It gave me a confidence that, when I’m under that kind of stress, instead of freaking out, I will calm down. I think that incident helped to build my confidence that there is a zone state that I can get into that will help me through a large-scale incident and everything I’m doing feels right. When you are doing it and you are doing it well and it feels good and you are in the zone, confidence seems to be a logical by-product of that state of being.

The characteristic of the feeling of being confident and in control is a central aspect of the flow experience, encapsulating the sense of mastery, autonomy, agency, and presence that you experience when fully immersed in an activity. This confidence and sense of control empower you to navigate challenges with grace and resilience, fostering a deep sense of efficacy and fulfilment that permeates every aspect of your life.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy

[Photo credit: Judith Glick-Smith]

Focusing on the task at hand is characterized by a sense of clarity and purpose. You have a clear understanding of what needs to be done and how to accomplish it. You can channel your mental energy efficiently toward reaching your goals. You remain open to feedback and responsive to changes. You adjust strategies and tactics as needed to maintain the flow-state. This flexibility fuels exploration, creativity, and innovation by constructing a dynamic interaction between the individual and the task itself.

In describing this characteristic of flow in his book Flow: The psychology of optimal experience, Csikszentimihalyi wrote that flow enables and is enabled by living in the present where “only a very select range of information can be allowed into awareness.”

When you focus on the task at hand, concerns outside the scope of the flow activity fall away. Your attention is laser-like and effortless on what you want to accomplish. This intensity is not strained or forced but comes naturally out of alignment with your purpose, goals, skills, and the challenges embedded in the activity. You become one with the activity.

Firefighter Joel Kanasky of FDNY, Rescue 1, told me the following story about an incident he responded to where there were quite a few firefighters trapped in a building collapse:

One of the guys that I dug out, put in the Stokes basket, and got out of the building was a dear friend for around 18 years. I didn’t know it was him until the next day. I never knew it. I had no idea. Sometimes, I tell myself, when I’m playing the game, I don’t pay attention to the things around me, except for the game.

When the captain and I crawled to him, he was buried from the waist down. He kept telling me over and over his leg was on fire. We kept telling him, “We’re going to get you out.” We kept digging, digging, digging. We got him out, got him in the Stokes basket, sent him on his way, and I never realized it was my dear friend.

He lived, but he’s off the job because he was burned so badly. I never had a clue it was him. I never talked to him about it. I knew it was him afterwards, when I visited him at the burn center. But I never talked about the incident with him.

Two years later, we were in Alexandria doing a seminar. He was giving a lecture and I was giving another. In one of the lectures, at the end, he talked about the collapse and how it changed his life because of being trapped for that moment. He kept talking about this guy who kept yelling at him to shut up and who put the webbing underneath him. He said he never knew who it was. But it was actually me who was yelling at him to shut up and who put the webbing underneath him. He didn’t know.

He hadn’t tuned into me at all and I hadn’t tuned into him. It was amazing that two years had passed before we actually had a beer over it and talked about it.

All the while, you must remain aware of surroundings and the dynamics of the situation and continue to solicit feedback to make appropriate decisions. Training and experience facilitate the ability to focus. However, you can experience flow at any level of expertise if you are challenged in the moment.

Situational awareness enables you to be deliberate about what is extraneous to the task. Focusing on the task at hand is a form of hyper-vision—being aware of everything around you and being able to identify what is extraneous in the moment. When you do not exercise comprehensive situation awareness, you experience tunnel vision. Tunnel vision occurs when you miss things that could be dangerous or detrimental while working on an activity.

Focusing on the task at hand does not, however, mean that you are devoid of emotion. In fact, you are enriched by being so fully involved in the activity. You experience a deep sense of enjoyment and fulfilment as you immerse yourself in activities that are personally meaningful and intrinsically rewarding. This emotional engagement enhances your concentration and boosts your overall experience of flow, creating a positive feedback loop that sustains immersion in the task.

No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading!

Learn to flow!

Dr. Judy