My new hobby of office juggling – not a metaphor but actual balls in the air – has opened up a whole new world of skills, synapses, coordination, and mental focus. Juggling is like crossword puzzles, mindfulness, meditation, … all-in-one.

(I think neuroscientists are going to have a blast once they hook up a juggler into some high-tech machines and brain scanners.)

But in addition to the obvious motor skills and ambidexterity required, juggling also involves a lot of psychology.

Here is a fun fact: in juggling, catching the balls is not the only hard part. For a beginner like me, letting go of the balls is perhaps even harder!

Wait – what? Why?

Anyone with fingers and a thumb knows how to grab things, and anyone who has ever grabbed anything also knows how to let go. Or how to throw something, and how to drop something. So throwing some balls, without catching them, cannot be very difficult, right?

Well, turns out it is really hard.

Throwing one ball is easy. Throwing two balls, one with each hand, in succession — no problem. Three, still ok. But with four or more, it gets complicated. Or to be more precise, it gets really hard.

Go ahead and laugh. I did too. I had two balls in each hand, four total, and was instructed to throw them in the air, in succession. One after the other, from alternating hands, in fast tempo, one-two-three-four. Ok, here goes: one-two-three… My mind said four, but only three balls flew into the air. The fourth ball was stuck. It was as if it had been glued to my hand. My conscious mind wanted to throw the fourth ball, but my fingers would not let it go.

One-two-three… three balls flew in the air, on their elliptical trajectories, from side to side. But in the end, one ball remained in the hand. Let go, you silly person! Trying again. One-two-three… and again, the fingers holding on to the last ball for dear life.

What happened?

I am a capable grownup, with no apparent motor skill problems, muscle spasms, or neurological deficiencies. Yet unable to throw four balls in succession? Incredible but true.

It turns out there is a real and valid reason for this.

The instantaneous flow of information to the brain in the activity of juggling is more than the conscious, calculating mind can handle at once. The eyes are tracking the balls, the brain is calculating weight and feel of the balls, their speed, their trajectories… in the information highway of the brain, this is rush hour. Too many cars blocking the flow of traffic.

The only way to accomplish the task of throwing ‘too many’ balls for the current ability level is to not overthink. To just throw. It takes practice to tell your brain to let go.

Naturally, there is something weird and upsetting about the moment when the conscious mind has to let go. It feels impossible at first, but as soon as you make yourself do it, it seems unfathomable that there was any problem with it to begin with.

My juggling hobby has already revealed many interesting facts about the functions of the human brain, but luckily it has also proven the power of neuroplasticity. I am on my personal research excursion into activity-dependent plasticity.

Lesson number 1:

Don’t overthink. Just throw.

You better lose yourself in the music
The moment, you own it, you better never let it go…
(Eminem: Lose yourself)

For some time now, I have been really interested in the concept of FLOW. That elusive and euphoric state of total concentration, often associated with creative work. In my work as a manager, consultant, and coach for artists and creators, the concept of flow is something I encounter almost daily: Artists have obviously known about creative flow for ages and it is a common phenomenon in their creative practice.

But my interest in the concept of flow is not limited to artistic work. Even in the not-so-creative aspects of my own office work, I tend to seek out the flow state. It is the state of mind that I find most productive for almost any type of work, from writing to accounting.

After all, flow is the sense of freedom that comes when things come together so smoothly and effortlessly that whatever I am doing stops feeling like work, and instead becomes something that is simply a pleasure to do. (A huge plus when running your own business...)

It has often been said that in the state of flow, the sense of self disappears. But do you really have to lose yourself to find the flow?

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness and the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, has identified a number of different elements involved in achieving flow. These elements include, among others, that there is no worry of failure; that self-consciousness disappears; and that the activity becomes an end in itself.

So yes, losing yourself is a requirement for flow. But in the state of flow, losing yourself does not mean letting your mind wander. Losing yourself is not daydreaming. This is something that is sometimes misunderstood. At least by me, previously. You can lose yourself in your daydreams, but that will not guide you into the state of flow.

Losing yourself is not the path to the state of flow.

But on the path to flow, you will lose yourself.

Flow is a state of total concentration and focused attention. In a normal state, your attention is divided between whatever you are doing, and your experience of yourself — meaning your thoughts and feelings about what you are doing. But as you get more concentrated on the task, there is less “brain power” remaining to pay attention to the experience of yourself. The more of your attention is absorbed in the activity, the less is left over for yourself. So eventually, your sense of self will temporarily disappear.

The first ‘trick’ for achieving flow is therefore quite simple: focus.

Whenever I find it difficult to focus on any given task, I let my mind practice it by doing an activity involving a high amount of concentration and focus: juggling. After 5, 10, or 20 minutes of juggling, in a state of flow, my mind is ready to use that focus on any given task.

So simple, yet so effective.

Some weeks ago I had an epiphany. You know, one of those sudden moments of Eureka — or as Einstein once put it, “a storm broke loose in my mind”. It wasn’t a supernatural phenomenon, nor a divine intervention. I didn’t even make a major scientific breakthrough.

My epiphany came in the form of three pink balls. And these three balls opened a whole new world to me. A world of continuous learning, excitement, growth, and sense of achievement.

A world of FLOW, to be exact.

How the three pink balls opened this world of flow to me is all thanks to an old friend Juha Ekorre. One morning, Juha and his lovely wife walked by the window of my new office. We hadn’t seen each other for some years, and he didn’t know about the new location of my arts management company. And just as fate would have it, my new office was along his dog-walking route that morning.

Juha is an experienced circus artist and business owner. We started talking about life, work, and everything in between. And then he told me that for some time already, he has used juggling as an ongoing mental and physical exercise for himself. He also recommended I do the same.

Well, this may sound quite typical and boring: Another middle-aged professional taking on a silly new hobby. But this is very far from the truth.

We set a date for a juggling session, and sure enough, a week later I finally had the pink balls in my hand. In a matter of 20 minutes, and with Juha’s excellent training method, I was juggling these three balls with great enthusiasm and energy. And what is most important, I had experienced the fastest way of getting into the zone: the state of flow.

In short, juggling is an activity that requires one’s utmost attention and concentration. It requires a certain degree of psycho-physical ambidexterity between the two sides of the brain and the two sides of the body, and a fair amount of persistence. With the right training method, there is always the perfect amount of risk, challenge, and motivation. And when you drop the balls — and this is a when, not an if — you get instant feedback to what you are doing.

And there was my epiphany. Juggling is perhaps the fastest and easiest way to tap into the flow state.

So for anyone who is interested in maximizing your own potential: try juggling. You won’t regret it.

And if you walk by my office window, don’t be surprised to see some happy juggling going on. After posting a short video clip of my first training session in my personal Facebook feed, I have had numerous friends asking about this. And when friends, colleagues, or clients nowadays come into my office, more likely than not they will pick up my pink juggling balls and try it for themselves.

And as for me — I am already on level four.