Achieving flow and fulfilment through drawing.

It is a quote attributed to Confucius, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. But why? What are the circumstances that contribute to making you feel like you’re not working when you are?

I’ve been interested in this recently because in 2014 I had a career crisis.

Having worked as a graphic designer for 26 years, for reasons too numerous to go into here, I experienced a massive loss of confidence about my abilities and suffered creative burnout.

I felt that I could no longer go on doing the job I was doing. Everywhere I looked, I was discouraged by the amount of competition for similar services that I offered, such as designs and logos for only £20. I carried on freelancing for a while, struggling on, and I also took a job in a car park to help ‘clear my head’. I mused about what job I could change to that would pay the rent and keep me going for the next 23 years. Could I teach graphic design? In the past I’ve really enjoyed gardening, could I become a gardener? Or could I become an art therapist? What career would give me the most fulfilment?

In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi gave a name to a concept that had existed for thousands of years in some Eastern religions. That concept is ‘Flow’ state, which is characterised by complete absorption in an activity, resulting in a loss of a sense of space and time. While you are in a flow state, you are fully focused, fully involved, and fully enjoying what you are doing. Csíkszentmihályi started researching flow when he became interested in how some artists could get completely lost in their work, and lose track of time to such an extent that the need for food, water and even sleep became unimportant.

The flow state is an intensely positive experience, just engaging enough to remain a challenge, but not so hard that we get anxious about it, and not so easy that we get bored.

When experienced, it produces personal development and growth. The diagram above illustrates it. You can be in a state of control and enter the flow state by increasing the challenge, or in an aroused state and enter flow once your skills improve. In terms of pleasure, many say it can’t be beaten so it certainly seems like a goal worth chasing.

In my life I had experienced flow before but due to my mental state at the time, it was eluding me. After my crisis, I had no interest in doing anything. It felt like I spent a large amount of time staring out of the window watching the clouds. This is where I found I needed patience. I didn’t panic. Well, maybe I did but others saw me through.

I put one foot in front of the other… takin small steps. In 2015, I was very fortunate to get a really good job with a local property marketing company. I’ve been there over three years now and I realise how lucky I am. I now do achieve flow state again and one of the activities I achieve flow state in is drawing on the computer, a task I’m regularly required to do as part of the job, usually when I’m drawing a site plan or map. I’ve also slowly come to realise what others have been saying to me throughout this time… that I’m really good at what I do. I’m not sure why I was the last one to come to this realisation!

In terms of aligning paid work so it doesn’t feel like work, the trick seems to be to combine as many of the things you enjoy doing to find your perfect ‘flow’ career. You don’t have to be expert at these the tasks, as skills improve over time the more you do things. While I was contemplating a future career, I drew a ‘map’ of all the things I like doing and saw where the tasks overlap to give me a pointer to the kind of job I am best suited to. This helped me determine that I didn’t need a career change after all. I just needed to reconnect with what I enjoy doing best of all.

Finally, the clouds are lifting and in the process of re-connecting with what I like doing best, I’ve started drawing and painting by hand again. In 2018, I made a promise to myself to stop creating ‘quick’ (churning out work to briefs as fast as possible to pay the bills) and start creating ‘beautiful’. I don’t think I’ll ever be the kind of artist that could labour over the same piece for months, I’m too impatient for that, but I wanted to start creating work that I’m proud of. I wanted to improve my hand drawing skills, and my drawing eye.

I started with Inktober 2018. I was deeply encouraged by the reception I got from friends on social media, and also the positive reactions I got from complete strangers in the Inktober community. I also found in the process of doing the drawings, I lost track of time and got totally absorbed in the activity. Doing drawings has also helped me massively as I rebuild and gather the ‘me’ that got so lost in 2014. Now I know that’s where I’ll find my ‘flow’. I may not be ‘expert’ at the moment, but I know the more I draw, the more I’ll improve, and I’m already pleased with the progress I’m making.