When I was in my twenties and recently married, my father-in-law invited me to join him for a Sunday morning golf game. I’d never played a round of golf. I’d done some putting on a putting green when I was twelve. How could I say no?

I stepped up to the first tee.

I swung. The ball lifted into the sky forming a perfect arc, bounced and rolled within a few feet of the green. I putted onto the green. And with the next putt – was in the hole. Par!!

My father-in-law shook his head, “That meditation stuff must really work.”

“Ha!.” I thought. “That was amazing. He’s right. I’m going to meditate my way through the course.”

It took me sixteen strokes to complete the next hole.

That first hole had been a happy accident. I’d stumbled into the par zone. But, I hadn’t developed the capacity to sustain play at that level.

You’ve had those happy accidents.

Times when your ability to think, act, and interact, took a quantum forward. Times of extraordinary performance. It’s a heady, exhilarating feeling.

It’s called being in a “flow state” by University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (last name pronounced: “cheek-sent-me-high-ee”). But, like all accidents, happy or otherwise, it’s not planned. By definition, accidents aren’t chosen.

They just happen.

You could be in a heated disagreement.

When the other person lashes out, and suddenly . . . it happens. Something in you shifts. You don’t react to their attack. You don’t get emotional. You still feel the initial burst of adrenaline but something else kicks in.

It’s a different state of mind.

It’s as though you’re both in the conversation and not in the conversation.

There’s a part of you, a skillful, non-reactive part – that takes over.

You see their emotionality and suffering clearly, but you don’t take their words or emotional intensity personally. And – here’s a biggie – you don’t judge them.

You’re present and engaged without being caught in the drama.

You listen deeply and respond clearly. You’re at your best without needing to control or manipulate the situation. You’re able to lay your cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may. Because, when you’re in the flow, you trust – you know – that by acting with integrity in this moment the next moment will take care of itself.

Again, these extraordinary states of flow are often happy accidents.

The question, then, is how to become more accident-prone? So, that the flow state becomes more the norm than the exception.

What can you do, intentionally, to unlock the door to extraordinary performance (and the joyful feelings that accompany it)? The key is to develop your attention muscle.

What is your attention muscle?

Well, it’s not really a muscle like a bicep. It’s more of a mind/brain capacity. It’s capacity to focus awareness in a chosen direction and to sustain that focus without effort.

If your attention muscle is weak – you can’t focus your awareness.

It bounces around – distracted by whatever pops up in your environment (or in your thoughts). Such unstable, bounce-around kind of attention is the norm for most of us. It’s a key reason why the flow state is such a rarity. This distracted, scattered state of mind was called, in ancient days, monkey mind. Like a monkey, the underdeveloped attention is in a state of constant hyper activity.

When your attention muscle is strong – you can place your awareness on a particular subject, idea, problem, or person, and it will stay there.

This allows you to be fully present. To infuse your experiences with full awareness.

The more deeply you attend to an experience, the more interesting it becomes. Full awareness allows you to more gracefully and effectively shift what you’re doing to achieve maximum results.

Full awareness promotes the happy accident of extraordinary performance. So, it’s less accidental and more intentional. But, to do this requires a strong attention muscle.

You can strengthen you attention muscle through the practice of meditation.

By taking just a short period of time each day and practicing a simple meditation exercise, you can strengthen your attention muscle.

(The link at the bottom of this article will take you to a short exercise for developing your attention muscle.)

As your attention muscle strengthens – it will be there for you in daily life.

In this way, attention is like a bicep. When you strengthen your biceps in the gym – that strength and capacity to lift weight stays with you in daily life. This is useful if you have move furniture.

When you strengthen your attention muscle, that capacity to focus, be fully present and aware stays with you in daily life, as well.

A strong attention muscle allows you to stay focused – even to the point of precipitating a flow state by choice.

No longer do you have to wait for happy accidents to land you in the state of flow. You can go there volitionally through the use of your trained attention muscle.

Working from the flow state enhances performance and fulfillment.

Your skills leap to a higher level. And you experience more joy in the process. It’s also useful on the golf course (as long as you’re not trying too hard to impress your father-in-law).

Here’s a link to a short (3minute) audio exercise for strengthening your attention muscle:

http://dharmaconsulting.com/attention-practices

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