Stop Chasing Flow. Build It.
By Derek Neighbors on September 28, 2025
Ancient Wisdom Flow States
Ancient wisdom meets modern neuroscience in understanding peak performance states
Last month I spent three days “optimizing” my setup. New playlist curated for maximum focus. Diet Rockstar versus White Monster energy drink debate, which one unlocks deeper concentration? Downloaded a new focus app (Ebb) with better notifications and progress tracking.
You know what I shipped during those three days of optimization?
Nothing.
I felt busy. I felt productive. I was researching, tweaking, preparing for the moment when everything would align perfectly and I’d drop into that magical flow state where words pour out effortlessly and code writes itself.
But flow doesn’t show up when you beg it. It shows up when you remove what blocks it.
Flow isn’t found. It’s built. The people who hit it most aren’t gifted, they’re disciplined.
The Ritual Trap
This is chasing a state and avoiding the work that creates it.
Here’s what I’ve learned: If you need the feeling first, you’ll never start. If you start first, the feeling follows.
We romanticize peak states, but we never build the boring conditions that produce them.
Most of us are stuck in sophisticated avoidance patterns that look like preparation but function as procrastination. We’ve turned flow into this mystical thing that requires perfect alignment of stars, caffeine levels, and ambient noise.
But that’s bullshit.
The Four Avoidance Patterns
Pattern 1: Ritual Chasing
The Behavior: Endless pre-work rituals as a substitute for starting.
Real-World Example: “I can’t write until I have the perfect quiet hour with the right tea and a clean desk and my favorite playlist and the lighting is just right.”
The Truth: You’re delaying discomfort. Starting is the only reliable ritual.
The Greek Insight: The Stoics called it prosoche, the discipline of attention. Attention is a practice, not a mood. You develop it by returning to the task again and again, regardless of conditions.
The Pattern: You’re decorating the gym instead of lifting weights.
Pattern 2: Tool Fetish
The Behavior: New note app, new editor theme, new capture workflow, every week there’s something to optimize.
Real-World Example: Rebuilding your entire productivity system while the actual work sits untouched in your inbox.
The Truth: Complexity is camouflage. Tools don’t create output, attention does.
The Greek Insight: Sophrosyne means self-control, but not the white-knuckle kind. It’s choosing sufficiency over novelty. The discipline to use what works instead of chasing what’s new.
The Pattern: You’re optimizing the pen while avoiding the page.
Pattern 3: Schedule Worship
The Behavior: Perfect calendar blocks become the goal instead of the means.
Real-World Example: You plan four hours of deep work, then let a twenty-minute interruption nuke the entire day because “the block is ruined.”
The Truth: Depth isn’t a calendar block, it’s a boundary you defend. You can protect it even in chaos.
The Greek Insight: Andreia isn’t just physical courage. It’s the courage to keep your boundary when it’s inconvenient, when people want things from you, when the world demands your attention.
The Pattern: You’re performing productivity instead of producing.
Pattern 4: Vibe Hunting
The Behavior: Waiting for motivation, the right playlist, or that inspiration “spark” before you begin.
Real-World Example: “Not feeling it today, tomorrow I’ll crush it.” Tomorrow becomes today. Today becomes never.
The Truth: Mood follows momentum, not the other way around. Start ugly; quality arrives later.
The Greek Insight: Aristotle called it energeia, pure activity. The effortless action everyone wants emerges after you begin, not before. You can’t think your way into flow. You have to act your way into it.
The Pattern: You’re expecting the water to feel warm before you jump in.
What Actually Works
Here’s what I’ve learned about building flow on demand:
Flow is the reward for constraint, not the precondition for work.
When I finally started shipping daily, it wasn’t because I found the perfect method. It was because I removed excuses and honored the boundary.
The shift happened when I ditched the energy drink debates and just defended my 45-minute block. Phone in another room. One document open. No optimization allowed until the timer hit zero. Here’s what shipped in that first week: half a dozen articles, a complete business incorporation for RevivaGo including acquiring a medical director and malpractice insurance, opening bank accounts, setting up pharmacy and supply accounts, launching the first revision of our platform, and exploring another venture with friends.
The method is brutal in its simplicity:
1. Stop chasing rituals. Start the task. Commit to two minutes before your avoidance ritual kicks in. Most of the time, you’ll keep going. When you don’t, at least you moved the needle.
2. Reduce inputs. One tab, one tool, one target. Flow hates clutter. Your brain can’t drop into deep states when it’s managing seventeen browser tabs and three different notification streams.
3. Set a clean constraint. Forty-five to seventy-five minutes. Phone in another room. Do not break the boundary for anything short of actual emergency. Defend it like you’d defend a meeting with your most important client.
4. Make progress visible. Track small wins after each block. Not metrics or analytics, just “What moved forward?” One sentence. This builds trust with yourself that the time matters.
5. Recover intentionally. Short walk, water, no dopamine spray. Don’t immediately check email or social media. Let your brain process what just happened before you flood it with new inputs.
The Greek philosophers understood this twenty-five hundred years ago:
- Prosoche (discipline of attention): Return to the work the instant you drift. Every return strengthens the muscle.
- Energeia (pure activity): The effortless state shows up after you begin, not before.
- Sophrosyne (self-control): Choose less. Depth emerges from constraint, not options.
The Diagnostic Questions
Before you “optimize” your setup again, ask yourself:
- What uncomfortable truth am I protecting by pretending optimization is progress?
- Which friction matters most today, and what will I remove in sixty seconds?
- What boundary will I defend if someone knocks on my door?
- If I start now for two minutes, what’s the next obvious step?
- How will I know I made progress without checking a metric?
The answers will tell you whether you’re building conditions for flow or just bullshitting yourself with busy work.
Your Challenge This Week
Don’t read this and nod. Do this today, or admit you’re avoiding.
1. Identify the avoidance: Name your favorite flow ritual that you use to delay starting. The playlist curation? The desk reorganization? The app comparison research?
2. Face what you’re running from: Write the sentence you don’t want to write. Open the file you’re dodging. Make the call you’re postponing.
3. Start the block: Fifty minutes, single target, phone elsewhere. Begin ugly. Quality comes later.
4. Track the truth: One line after each session, What moved? What blocked you? No analysis, just facts.
5. Repeat tomorrow before you optimize: Do it again before you’re allowed to change anything about your system.
Don’t change tactics. Remove friction. Build the conditions and let flow show up as a side effect.
Final Thoughts
This reveals a simple human truth: we want the feeling without the discipline.
Our culture sells flow hacks and productivity porn because we’re desperate for the experience without the work that creates it. But excellence doesn’t work that way.
When you stop bullshitting yourself and build boundaries, flow stops being mystical and starts being reliable. You don’t need perfect vibes. You need practiced attention, clean constraints, and the courage to begin before you feel ready.
The person who can start ugly and protect their boundary never needs to chase flow states. They have something better: the discipline to create the conditions where flow emerges naturally.
That’s the difference between performing productivity and actually producing.
Ready to stop waiting for motivation and start building it? MasteryLab is for people who are done chasing states and ready to build systems.
