World renowned psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes a life worth living?”
He notes that all studies tell us that money cannot make us happy. So he turns to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.”
Find out what ‘flow’ is, WATCH:
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Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.
According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.
Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the moment, present, in the zone, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.
*** Components of flow ***
Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following ten factors as accompanying an experience of flow:
- Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
- Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.
- Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
- A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
- People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.
- Not all are needed for flow to be experienced.
One cannot force himself or herself to enter flow or even predict when he or she is going to enter flow. It just happens. A flow state can be entered while performing any activity, although it is most likely to occur when one is wholeheartedly performing a task or activity for intrinsic purposes.
There are three conditions that are necessary to achieve the flow state:
One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals. This adds direction and structure to the task.
One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills. One must have confidence that he or she is capable to do the task at hand.
The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows him or her to adjust his or her performance to maintain the flow state.
In 1997, Csíkszentmihályi published the graph to the right. This graph depicts the relationship between the perceived challenges of a task and one’s perceived skills. This graph illustrates one further aspect of flow: it can only occur when the activity at hand is a higher-than-average challenge (above the center point) and requires above-average skills (to the right of the center point).[6] The center of this graph (where the sectors meet) represents one’s average levels of challenge and skill. The further from the center an experience is, the greater the intensity of that state of being (whether it is flow or anxiety or boredom or relaxation).
The autotelic personality
Csíkszentmihályi hypothesized that people with several very specific personality traits may be better able to achieve flow than the average person. These personality traits include curiosity, persistence, low self-centeredness, and a high rate of performing activities for intrinsic reasons only. People with most of these personality traits are said to have an autotelic personality.
It has not yet been documented whether people with an autotelic personality are truly more likely to achieve a flow state. One researcher (Abuhamdeh, 2000) did find that people with an autotelic personality have a greater preference for “high-action-opportunity, high-skills situations that stimulate them and encourage growth” than those without an autotelic personality. It is in such high-challenge, high-skills situations that people are most likely to enter the flow state.
I absolutely love that flow chart he shows. I suddenly got a way better understanding of why I’m feeling in a certain way.. I’m no stranger to flow, but it’s really hard to get back up there when I’m in the lower left side..
I do feel it’s missing a dimension.. I’ve been recently diagnosed with a certain type of depression, and I’m finally beginning to see how that is affecting my life. Looking at this chart, I’d say the intersection in the middle is more to the top right for me. Once I’m out the flow, I very easily slip back into the negative states again and linger there. I’d say that I need my skill and challenge levels to be over 80% to actually feel good for a while.. anything else, and I’ll just end up worrying, or feeling bored.. getting very little done..
So my question to all of you is: Do you feel that the center of this chart should be moved into any direction according to how you feel most of the time? If so, why do you think that is?
The point is to keep your mind busy with wholesome work. It’s irony that the entertainment now days can never make you happy — true entertainment, is really wholesome work. I find it comical, yet true.
How does it feel to be in flow?
1) Complete involved in what we are doing – focused and concentrated.
2) A sense of ecstasy — of being outside everyday reality.
3) Great inner clarity — knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing.
4) Knowing that the activity is doable — that our skills are adequate to the task.
5) A sense of serenity — no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundries of ego.
6) Timelessness — thoughouly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes.
7) Intrinsic motivation — whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.
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