Zone of Genius
How To Escape Your Zone of Excellence and FLY!
Have you ever wondered why some activities make time fly, while others fill you with dread and boredom? Have you often been surprised by the difference between the activities you love vs the ones other people around you enjoy best? If you love being in flow, then you might have started to analyse which activities enable you most to be in flow.
A few years ago, I came across the concept of ‘The Zone of Genius’. In this wonderful book, ‘The Big Leap’, Gay Hendricks explains how we all have a genius zone, and how we can go about finding it and spending time in that zone! And it comes to no surprise, that when you are in your zone of genius, this is when you are the most in flow!
In this article, let’s explore the four zone of work, how you can discover your zone of genius and fully commit to it.
The Four Zones of Work
According to ‘the Big Leap’, the activities you work on fall into one of these four categories
Zone of Incompetence
These are activities that you have low competence in, and that you don’t enjoy doing. When you start any new project, hobby or work, you are probably in your Zone of Incompetence.
Zone of Competence
As you begin to learn and grow in these new projects/hobbies/jobs, you will gradually gain skills and you will be in your Zone of Competence. Here, you don’t excel in your work and you don’t enjoy it fully, but you can go a good enough job. You know how to do the tasks, and you quite like it.
Zone of Excellence
In your Zone of Excellence, that’s when you’ve gained considerable competence in a given field of work, and you generally quite enjoy the activities you are doing.
Gay Hendricks refers to the Zone of Excellence as the Danger Zone. When you are working in your Zone of Excellence, you are delivering excellent outcomes and it is very easy to get trapped and stuck doing that work. It feels comfortable and your work is satisfying enough.
At first, you feel quite happy In your Zone of Excellence, but with time, you notice that you are not really fulfilled; there is a lack of purpose & meaning and you often question if this is how you want to be spending your time and life.
Your Zone of Excellence is not your IKIGAI. The IKIGAI is the work you do with the intersection of:
- LEARNED: You are highly skilled
- IMPACT: The world needs it
- FINANCIALLY Rewarding: You get paid for it
- ENJOYMENT: You love that work
Often, the IKIGAI piece missing in the Zone of Excellence is the enjoyment – over time, your Zone of Excellence activities do not feel that enjoyable and you quite like it, but you don’t really love it. This is where most people spend all of their career.
Zone of Genius
In your Zone of Genius, that’s when you tap into your full potential: you love the work and you are highly competent. Because your Zone of Genius is the magical intersection of passion and skill, this means you are able to discover untapped potential and deliver even greater outcomes than you did in your Zone of Excellence.
Furthermore, as you are passionate in your Zone of Genius, you happily put in more hours of learning and research, and can truly shine as an expert in that field of work.
All the experts in the world are working in their Zone of Genius. It is not possible to deliver such incredible high standards in any field, while only being in your Zone of Excellence.
In your Zone of Genius, you are intrinsically motivated – you don’t need an extrinsic source of motivation (money, status, etc.) to make you do the work, you genuinely want to be doing those activities.
The Greeks had their own definition of the Zone of Genius: Eudaimonia. According to different Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle...), Eudaimonia is happiness found in growth and learning. There is therefore a direct correlation between Eudaimonia, the Zone of Genius, and Maslow’s Self-actualisation.
As you are reading this, you might wonder how you can discover what your Zone of Genius is. That’s where the introspection begins.
Discover Your Zone of Genius
Most of the time, we intuitively know what our Zone of Genius is: these are the activities that we do with ease, that we love doing, that make time speed by, that we would do even if we weren’t paid to do them.
A few questions can support you to discover your Zone of Genius:
- PAST: What activities did you love doing as a child?
- HOBBY: What are the activities you are drawn to as hobbies?
- WORK: What jobs do you enjoy doing most? What tasks do you love most in your current work?
- INSPIRATION: Who inspires you and why?
- FLOW: Which activities are you most in flow?
- WONDER: How can I spend the majority of my time doing what I most love to do AND making my greatest contribution to the world?
Several tools can support you to explore your Zone of Genius:
- EXPERIMENT: Try different activities and notice which ones entice you most, which ones you love spending time in, and want to do more of.
- FEEDBACK: Ask for feedback from your friends and colleagues, what do they think suits you best, when you deliver your best work and what they enjoy most about working with you.
- FLOW: Map out your activities on a flow chart (challenge vs skills), your top flow activities are probably in your Zone of Genius.
- CURIOSITY: Follow what you are curious about, and discover more about these different skills through training, learning, reading – you will probably end up in your Zone of Genius.
Commit To Your Zone of Genius
Once you know what your Zone of Genius is, the next challenge is prioritising spending time in your Zone of Genius. The best ways to prioritise it is to acknowledge that it isn’t a luxury, but rather the most effective way to spend your time.
When you are in your Zone of Genius, your results are 10X more impactful. If you are spending most of your time and energy in your Zone of Excellence, your impact won’t be as significant. Therefore, your Zone of Genius is not only a gift to yourself, but also to the world.
One of the obstacles is the Upper Limit Problem that Gay Hendricks covers in ‘The Big Leap’. We only let ourselves be happy to a certain level and then we sabotage and bring ourselves down. Fully committing to your Zone of Genius requires great courage, and also allowing yourself to enjoy your work more.
Many of us have this ingrained belief that our work needs to be hard, that if we don’t suffer in the process then it doesn’t count as work. What would your life look like if you didn’t believe this? What would your work look like if you discovered your Zone of Genius and committed to spending most of your work in your Zone of Genius?
Often, the issue comes not from not knowing what our Zone of Genius is, but rather from not allowing ourselves to focus and prioritise our Zone of Genius. If we fully understand the importance and benefits from being in our Zone of Genius, this makes it easier for us to shift gears and start to fly in our Zone of Genius!
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie.