Achieving Peak State… “But how long will it take?”

Guest blog: Chris Chaplen

Over the past 18 months I have developed an obsession with motivation, performance and chasing success. I quickly learnt that trying to force yourself into this state of high performance through will power alone would only provide short term results, it becomes easy for the conditioned mind to creep back in, take over and rapidly bring you back to square one. This leaves you to wonder what is probably the most common question for people nowadays…’but how long will it take?’

However the problem with this question is that its creates lack, we begin to live inside that gap of trying to predict when and how it’s going to happen; when will everything fall into place and all of a sudden you will are a success?

My early attempts provided me with small glimpses of the potential for what can be achieved through inducing a peak state and furthermore entering a creative mind state. This further motivated me to keep searching for that perfect method to create the state and dwell in it for as long as possible. The beauty of it is this applies to ANY given field. If you imagine any task that you undertake that bears importance to you, wouldn’t you want to carry this out in the highest possible mental state?

Most of us tend to look outside of ourselves to find the answer, the only problem with this is it takes away our own control. What do we do if all of a sudden we don’t have our coffee, or that ‘magic’ brain performance pill is no longer available. A peak state of performance must come from within if it is to be sustainable over long periods of time. Nature has provided us with the natural means of achieving this, but it’s been long forgotten how to do it. It’s time to go deep within.

Western culture and society has done a fantastic job of making us all feel a sense of lack and inadequacy, let’s say you buy the latest iPhone and for a few weeks you feel great, the release of dopamine (A pleasure-based neuro transmitter) gives you that temporary sense of joy. Soon the novelty wears off and it becomes normal to us, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily however 6 months down the line when the newer version is released the ‘lack gap’ is created.

I believe this ‘lack gap’ can almost be observed in any area of our lives, our work life for example, constantly moving from task to task trying to go higher and higher expecting some monumental change to arise from a feeling of insufficiency. We concentrate on the destination and not the journey, this in itself means we are doomed to fail.

Imagine creating the feeling which a high-performance athlete attains whilst competing or the free runner experiences knowing that a missed step could mean death. People in these situations are concerned with one thing and one thing only, the task in hand, totally immersed and focused in the present moment. Now imagine, you could achieve and sustain this state whilst sat in your living room, driving your car or more importantly at times where you want to create. The chances of creating a successful and meaningful life for yourself are far more likely if you could sustain these periods of ‘Peak State’ day in day out over months and even years.

As I write this now after putting myself into this state mentioned above, it just feels so incredible. The possibilities are endless, I don’t know if there is an upper limit to be reached. I guess there is only one way to find out.