How to Enter Flow State Anytime You Want

Summary

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The Mindset Mentor with Rob Dial

Episode: How to Enter Flow State Anytime You Want
Date: October 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this focused and practical episode, Rob Dial unveils the science and actionable steps behind entering the flow state—a highly productive, creative, and almost magical mental state where challenge and skill harmonize and time seems to disappear. Drawing on neurology, psychology, and years of personal and client experience, Rob breaks down what flow truly is, why it matters, and how anyone can intentionally access it, making enhanced performance and fulfillment a daily reality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Flow State

• Definition: Flow state is a mental zone of “full focus” and deep engagement where you perform at your best, often feeling relaxed yet energized.
  • “It’s this feeling of being very relaxed but also extremely energized and focused.” (03:49)
• Origins: The term emerged from psychologist observations of top performers (artists, athletes, musicians) who seemed to lose themselves in their tasks. Originally called “optimal experience.”
• Requirements:
  • High challenge
  • High skill
  • Full focus
  • “To get into flow state, you need to have high skill, you need to have high challenge, and then you need to bring full focus to this thing.” (05:13)

2. Neurological & Psychological Mechanisms

• Shutting Down the Inner Critic:
  • The prefrontal cortex (self-consciousness, time awareness) quiets down; “transient hypofrontality” allows you to lose track of time and forget about your inner critic. (06:55)
• Brain Wave Shift:
  • Brain moves from fast beta waves to slower alpha and even theta waves, fostering creativity and insight.
• Neurochemical “Super Cocktail”:
  • Your brain releases dopamine (motivation), norepinephrine (laser focus), endorphins (feel good), and serotonin (calm confidence).
  • “Flow is literally creating a chemical super cocktail, like a chemical high inside of your brain—but the best part is there’s no crash.” (08:03)

3. The Six-Step Process to Entering Flow State

Rob provides a structured method for entering flow on demand.

Step 1: Pick a High Challenge/High Skill Task (08:49)

• Choose tasks that stretch you—if it’s too easy, you’ll get bored; too hard, you’ll get anxious.
• Set a clear goal and make sure the activity matters to you.
  • Examples: Athletes in a critical game, learning a difficult guitar solo, writing, or creative work.

Step 2: Eliminate Distractions (13:11)

• "Flow requires deep focus. Not checking your phone, checking your emails, getting notifications, no multitasking, no doom scrolling." (13:13)
• Concrete tips:
  • Put phone in another room
  • Turn off internet if possible
  • Wear hats or hoodies to limit visual distractions
  • Headphones with repetitive, familiar music

Step 3: Create a Ritual (14:47)

• Consistent rituals cue your brain it's time to focus.
  • Play the same song, use a flow playlist, light incense or candles, adjust lighting.
  • Add physical cues: stretch, drink water, prep your space.
• Incorporate 2-3 minutes of breathwork (box breathing or "breath of fire").
  • Physical movement—like "ice skiers" or jumping on a mini-trampoline—helps the body get ready.
• “Your brain loves consistency… Trying to set a vibe… get your body in the right state, get your body ready to go.” (15:34)

Step 4: Set a Timer for Deep Work (17:07)

• The sweet spot: 90-minute block (ultradian rhythms—your brain’s natural peak focus period).
  • Use Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes work, 5 minutes rest, repeat three times.
  • Avoid your phone or other distractions during breaks.
• Optional: Use a “trigger phrase” to verbally signal your mind it’s time to lock in.

Step 5: Track Your Flow Triggers (17:46)

• Notice when you feel most creative or productive.
  • Keep a journal to identify patterns (time of day, pre-conditions, prior activities).
  • Example: Rob avoids analytical tasks if he wants to be creative; his best “deep work” window is 10am–1pm.
  • “Every hour my phone would go off and I would rate my energy on a scale of 1 to 10 over the past hour…” (18:58)

Step 6: Don’t Try to Force It (20:22)

• Flow must be allowed, not forced; it’s like luring a cat, not chasing one.
  • “If you try to chase a cat, you probably won’t catch it. The way that you catch a cat is that you have to allow it to come to you.” (20:22)
• Treat the process as experimentation—some days you get there, some you don’t, but over time you’ll learn exactly what works for your brain and body.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What if you could flip a switch in your brain and become unstoppable on command?” (02:01)
• “You’ll know you’re in it because you’ll lose track of time. You’ll forget about yourself. You’ll forget about your inner critic. You’ll forget what other people are going to think about you.” (05:25)
• “Your brain is literally creating a chemical super cocktail, like a chemical high inside of your brain—but the best part is there’s no crash.” (08:03)
• “Visual focus always comes before your mental focus. So mental focus follows visual focus.” (13:51)
• “Rituals are important. These signals are telling your brain, ‘Hey, we’re doing something different—not the same thing we’ve been doing all day.’” (16:28)
• “Flow isn’t just for high performers… Flow is something that everybody can access. It's your birthright and it’s trainable. And you will get better the more that you do it.” (21:30)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:41 – Episode begins: Rob Dial introduces the theme of entering flow state
• 03:44 – Explanation of what flow state is; why it matters
• 05:13 – Conditions necessary for flow: high challenge, high skill, deep focus
• 06:55 – Neurological mechanisms: transient hypofrontality, brain waves, neurochemistry
• 08:49 – Step 1: Choosing the right task for flow
• 13:11 – Step 2: Eliminating all distractions (Rob’s personal writing setup)
• 14:47 – Step 3: Creating a ritual (music, scents, breathwork, movement)
• 17:07 – Step 4: Setting up a 90-minute deep work block
• 17:46 – Step 5: Tracking your own patterns for flow
• 20:22 – Step 6: Not forcing flow—allowing it
• 21:30 – Flow state as a universally accessible, trainable human potential

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Closing Message

Rob wraps up by calling listeners to make flow part of daily life—not just for productivity, but to feel more alive, creative, and purposeful. He encourages listeners to share their experiences, tag him on Instagram, and remember: “Make it your mission to make somebody else’s day better.” (21:54)

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For listeners seeking practical transformation, this episode offers a blueprint for harnessing your true potential through flow, making high-level focus and creativity accessible anytime.

Transcript

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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you love this podcast, do me a favor, give us a rating and review. However you listen to us, the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more that that platform that you're listening on, like Apple or Spotify, ends up showing this to people who have never listened to it before. So if you do that, I would greatly appreciate it. Today I'm going to be talking about how to enter flow state anytime you want. Because what if you could flip a switch in your brain and become unstoppable on command? There's a hidden setting that's inside of your mind that turns distraction into laser.

[A]

Focus and then effort into ease.

[B]

And most people never actually access it and they waste years of their life grinding instead of flowing. And so this isn't about hacks, this is about unlocking your brain's real superpower of focus and taking action. And once you know how to tap into this through these six steps that I'm going to teach you, you'll never approach productivity same Way again, this is the exact process of how to neurologically enter flow state. And I'm sure you've felt it before. You know, have you ever done something before? We have one of those moments where everything just kind of clicks and it seems like time disappears. Like you're fully immersed. Every part of you, your brain, your body is fully immersed into what you're doing. Time disappears. You're not overthinking, you're not thinking about other people, you're just doing. It's kind of like flowing out of you. And honestly, when you get yourself there, it feels kind of magical. And then when you're not in it, you're kind of addicted to trying to getting back there. And so that isn't a fluke. Years ago when I first heard about it, I was like, ah, it seems kind of weird. I bet that's not a real thing. I bet that's just some woo woo thing. But it's not, it's not a fluke, it's not luck. It's actually flow state. And it is a real biological and.

[A]

Neurological measurable brain state that you can.

[B]

Enter and, and teach your brain to enter on demand. And that's what we're gonna go over today. First off, let's talk about what flow state is exactly. So flow state is the mental state where you are fully focused in something, you're bringing all of your brain power to it. You are deeply, deeply engaged in what's going on. And you're also performing at your best. Strangely, it's this feeling of being very relaxed, but also extremely energized in focus. And this term came about when psychologists were actually studying artists and athletes and musicians and high performers, like people who had, who were at the absolute top of their field is they noticed that they could kind of enter this state. Like, they noticed that they all got to some point where they got lost in what they were doing in their actual neurology and what was going on in their brain kind of shifted. And so it was first called years ago optimal experience. And it's basically where the challenge of what you're doing meets your skill. And you basically lose yourself in the task that you're doing. And so flow state is basically, you want to think about this way. To get into flow state, you need to have high skill, you need to have high challenge. And then you need to bring full focus to this thing. And so focus in this flow state and getting yourself in there, you, you'll know that you're in it. And I'm gonna explain why you shouldn't chase it, but it's. You're gonna kind of wanna chase it, but just go with me and it'll all start to make sense. You'll know you're in it because you'll lose track of time. You'll forget about yourself. You'll forget about your inner critic. You'll forget about what other people are gonna think about you. Your actions start to feel like they're coming out of you. Like they'll feel automatic, they'll feel effortless. You'll feel calm, but also extremely excited at the same time. And ideas and. And problem solving just kind of flows out of you. The way you want to think about is this. It's like an athlete in the zone. If you've ever seen, like Tom Brady when he used to play in the final two minutes of a drive, it was like, you don't want that guy to have the ball because it is. It is absolute focus. It is really high skill, but also really, really high challenge. You can also think about like a writer that sits down and writes nonstop with no blocks, or a musician where you watch them and their eyes are closed and it's just kind of like flowing out of them. It's like flawless improv improvisation, right? Or a creator that's editing for three hours and then they get done and they're like, oh, my God, that felt like 20 minutes. And so when you look at flow state, I want you to know what's happening inside of your brain. Because if you can understand what's happening inside of your brain, you can know that the step by step process to bring yourself back there, to know when you're there, and then to be able to get yourself back there whenever you want to. And so this is the part that most people skip, but when you understand it, you can get yourself into flow kind of whenever you want to. So what happens is this, when you get yourself into flow, the inner critic that's inside of your head starts to shut down. The programmed version of you, your prefrontal cortex, which is the part that, you know makes you self conscious and time awareness starts to actually go quiet. Like it's. Your brain stops sending as much blood flow to your prefrontal cortex. This is called transient hippo frontality. And so it's. Your brain goes from what will people think of me? To turning off and just excited to create something and have it flow out of you. Then what happens is your brain waves will start to shift you. Your brain waves will drop from fast beta waves into slower alpha and even theta waves. It's this sweet spot for creativity, insight and flow. And you're not thinking about any other person in the world and what they're going to think of you. It's just kind of coming out of you, right? The next thing is that your brain is going to start to release this like neurochemical super cocktail. Your brain floods yourself with these feel good focus enhancing chemicals. So basically there's dopamine, which is motivation and reward. There is norepinephrine which is your laser. Focus is going to start to come online. There's endorphins that are going to get released which are feel good and pain relief as well. There's serotonin, which is calm confidence. When you get done with everything is that post flow feeling. So your brain, like flow is literally creating a chemical super cocktail, like a chemical high inside of your brain. But the best part is there's no crash. And so can you train yourself to do this 100%? Like you can create the conditions for flow to follow a process and to get yourself in there. If the ingredients are right, if the timing is right, if you do it right, flow just kind of shows up once again. You can't chase it. It just kind of shows up. And so let me show you like the step by step process to entering flow state anytime that you want to. Okay. So the first thing is that you need to pick a high challenge, high skill task.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It cannot be easy. It's got to be something that actually challenges you. Flow lives like right on the edge of your comfort zone. If it's too easy, you'll get bored and your brain won't focus as much as it needs to because it's too easy. You don't really need to bring all of your brain. If it's too hard, then you'll probably start to get anxious or upset. If it's just right and you're in between the two of them of too easy and too hard, that's where you'll find flow. This is why an athlete like you can see Michael Jordan when he would go into flow, right? Like game six, NBA finals, that's not easy. Like that is the highest of highest of challenge. In that moment, in the final minute and 30 seconds, that is the biggest stage, the biggest challenge you could possibly get into. But at the same time, you've got his high skill, both of those things click, time disappears. He ends up stealing the ball, getting the game winning shot. And so what you want to do is you want to choose something. What's really important is choose something that matters to you. Like make it challenging enough to just stretch you a little bit. It could be something with work, something with your business. It could be something with creativity. You know, maybe it's like trying to learn a guitar solo that's just, just a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Like you can get some of it, but you're going to mess up a lot and you want to set a clear goal of what you're trying to do when you're doing it. Okay? So that's the first thing that you're going to want to do.

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And now back to the show. The second thing that you're going to want to do is eliminate every possible distraction that exists in your reality. Right? Flow requires deep focus. Not checking your phone, checking your emails, getting notifications, no multitasking, no doom scrolling. So like take your phone, put it in another room for the next 90 minutes. No notifications. You know, close out all of your extra tabs, let people know that you're off the grid for the next 90 minutes and you'll come back at 2 o' clock or whatever it is. I learned this and I was really researching a lot of this when I was writing my book level up. And what I learned to do and do all of this was I learned to take my computer and to put.

[A]

My phone in another room.

[B]

So it was just me in my computer. My phone was in another room. I would turn off the Internet connection on my computer, I would put my headphones on, I would listen to the exact same song every single time. And I went a little bit overboard because I know that your visual focus always comes before your mental focus. So mental focus follows visual focus. So I would wear a hat and a hoodie. And so like all I could see in the frame of my eyesight was the computer and the flashing like blinking sign, like just the cursor just blinking in front of me, right? And so it was this way to be like everything in this world disappears except for my brain and this computer that's sitting in front of me. And you know, that's the really the, the way that you want to try to Create this space. Okay, so that's step number two. Step number three is to create a ritual to enter this flow state. Your brain loves consistency, and so it.

[A]

It.

[B]

It likes to have triggers to know when it's about to go and do something. And so, like I said, I play the exact same song for probably almost 10 years now. I would say at this point, you can create a flow playlist if you want. It could be lo fi beats, it could be instrumental, it could be binarial beats. Like I said that I use, I train. I. I saw it as a way to train my brain. Like Pavlov's Dogs, where you ring a bell and you give a dog a treat. You ring a bell, you give a dog a treat. And do it enough times, you ring a bell, and naturally they start to salivate because their brain's expecting that thing. When I put on my headphones and I put on this song and I put on my hat and I put on my hoodie, and nothing else exists, my brain has literally just learned, okay, now it's when we lock in because we've gotten so unfocused in our life. I'm trying to train my brain to do what I need it to do. So you can do that.

[A]

You can set a vibe. You have the music.

[B]

You can light a candle. You can have incense, you can have essential oils if you want to. Trying to set a vibe, drink some water, stretch, get comfy, get your body in the right state, get your body ready to go. And then what I recommend doing is doing two to three minutes of some sort of breath work. It could be deep breathing. It could be box breathing, if you want to. One of the ones that I really like doing, I think they call it breath of fire, which is just breathing in and out of your nose as fast as you possibly can for two or three minutes. You might have some snot fly out, because it's a lot. So it's just for two or three minutes. It actually gets your heart rate up. It gets your brain focused, gets your body focused as well. You can do this thing called ice skiers. Ice skiers is when you stand up and you act like you're, you know, actually like skiing.

[A]

So you.

[B]

You put your hands above your head, you breathe in on the way out. You put your hands all the way down as if you're skiing, and you.

[A]

Have both poles in your hand, and.

[B]

You breathe all the way out on the way down. You could do that. You could jump on a rebounder, you know, which is a tiny little Trampoline, have your eyes focus on one thing in the distance. Because once again, mental focus follows visual focus. Basically what you're trying to do is you're creating your own ritual, not routine ritual, because rituals are important. These signals are telling your brain, hey, we're doing something different, not the same thing we've been doing all day. And we're entering the flow state. And then what you want to do, step number four, is to set a timer for deep work. The magic number is 90 minutes. That's how long, about how long your brain can sustain deep concentration.

[A]

It's called ultradian rhythms.

[B]

And so ultradian rhythms are basically natural rhythms that your, like, biological cycles that your brain and your body go through multiple times a day. And so during each cycle, your brain rises to peak alertness and then naturally starts to dip into lower focus and fatigue. And so that 90 minute focus window is basically your brain's natural productivity wave, not just some random number. So you want to set it for 90 minutes and you can use the pomodoro technique to actually get focus, which is 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes off. And you do three cycles of these, which would equal 90 minutes, 25 minutes.

[A]

Of work, 5 minutes OFF.

[B]

So it's deep focus. Give your brain 5 minutes off, close your eyes, you know, meditate, go stare in the distance, whatever it might be. Don't look at your phone. And you repeat it three times, and that ends up being an entire 90 minutes. And then you could also do something if you want to. You could do something like a trigger phrase where you say something out loud to yourself. You have a phrase that's also another phrase right before. So you get your mind focused as well. You say it out loud, and it's like the cue to the mind that you could use. Okay, so that's step number four. Step number five is actually, as you start to do this, what you're gonna do is you're gonna start to track your flow triggers. Everybody's brain and body has is different. Like we all have these like different flow portals. And so you've got to ask yourself, like, what time of day do you feel the most creative? You know, what, when do you feel the most alive? And then you keep a journal and you start to notice patterns. Your patterns will emerge, and that's how you create your personal flow. Like for me, if I need to be creative, I know if I need to be creative, like today, to create podcast episodes and write them before I record. I cannot do anything with work before because my brain has this weird thing for me, and I found this over years and years of tracking myself, is if I want to be creative, I cannot turn on my analytical brain.

[A]

And if I have a call with.

[B]

My team, we start talking about business and we start talking about employees, and we start talking about numbers and sales and all this stuff, I've become very analytical. A completely other side of my brain is creative. It's kind of like it turns off. So if I need to be creative, I can't do anything with business first. And so for me, what I found, because I track my energy throughout the day. And the way I track my energy, just so you know, is that, you know, every hour my phone would go off and I would rate my energy on a scale of 1 to 10 over the past hour. And what I found out is that my working hours, like when my brain is the most focused for me, it's different for everybody. My best friend, it's like 10pm at night is when he's the most focused. It's wild. For me, it's 10am to 1pm that is like, I've got to get my deep work done at some point in time in that. That's where my brain, my body, everything just feels like it's in flow. And so that's step number five is to start figuring out and tracking your flow trigger so that you can start getting yourself into it better. And then the last part that's really important, step six is don't try to force it. Like, it's like kind of like I said earlier, it's kind of like trying to chase a cat. Like, if you try to chase a cat, you probably won't catch it. The way that you catch a cat is that you have to allow it to come to you. And so, you know, with flow, you've got to be able to not put any pressure to be productive, but just try to do something that you enjoy.

[A]

And know that, all right, I might.

[B]

Work for 90 minutes a day and I might not get into flow. Okay, well, then I figured out what works and I figured out what doesn't work. And then you do it for a couple more days, and a couple more days you start figuring out this works and this works and that works, and this doesn't work and that doesn't work. So I'm going to take this out, I'm going to put these in and. And you start creating, like, your own little plan of exactly how to enter flow. And so this whole idea of flow, it really changes everything because we're not Just talking about getting stuff done. We're talking about feeling more alive when you're doing something which will most likely turn into you getting more done. Like, way more done and better quality of work. And when you're in flow consistently, you access these great ideas, you feel more confident and fulfilled. You're aligned with your purpose and what you're trying to do. Here, you stop overthinking and you just really start executing and just start doing. And honestly, you stop living on autopilot. You start living with an actual purpose towards something. And so you already know what flow feels like. You've gotten there at least once or twice in your entire life. You've done it before, even if it was on accident. But what if you could make it more intentional? What if you could do it every single day at some point throughout the day? What if you designed your days around it? Because flow isn't just for high performers or for artists or for athletes or any of that. Flow is something that everybody can access. It's your birthright and it's trainable. And you will get better the more that you do it. You just got to figure out what works best for you. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at robdial Junior. R O B D I A L J R and if you love this podcast, you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of the podcast, you can go to coachwithrob.com I have programs that range from 12 weeks all the way up to 12 months. So once again, coachwithrob.com and with that, I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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