There is no room in your awareness for conflicts or contradictions you know that a distracting thought or emotion might get you buried face down in the snow. "Imagine that you are skiing down a slope and your full attention is focused on the movements of your body, the position of the skis, the air whistling past your face, and the snow-shrouded trees running by. Not enough, and our brain loses focus and looks for other stimuli.Ĭsíkszentmihályi best describes flow as the moves of a professional skier taking on a difficult run: Too much challenge and we get overcome with anxiety. Each described entering a state of flow at a moment where their skills were being put to the test, but not enough so to feel overwhelmed by the task at hand.
This last point is especially important for finding flow-it's mastery combined with challenge that brings flow.Ĭsíkszentmihályi first developed the idea of flow from speaking with professionals across a variety of fields, from artists and athletes to scientists and academics. In other words, you must know what you’re doing, be able to see whether or not you’re doing it well, and be pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. You must be at the balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and your own perceived skills Your task must provide clear and immediate feedback But as Csíkszentmihályi explains in a 2014 paper, there are actually specific criteria that must be met for you to enter flow: You're working, and then you're in flow-as if you just just accidentally fall into it. So what if we could dissect just what pushes us into this state and then just jump into flow easily? What’s Really Happening When we Enter Flow?ĭoing something challenging that you're skilled at? You've got a good chance of entering flow. But like any reverie, the moment you recognize being in flow, its blissful sensation begins to dissolve and the world, complete with its distractions, comes rushing back into our heads. It’s high-speed problem solving it’s being swept away by the river of ultimate performance." No effort.Īthletes call it "being in the zone." Artists call it "the muse." Psychologists today have given it an official name: Flow.įirst proposed by positive psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi in the 70s, flow is the mental state where we are "so immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity that we lose sense of space and time." Or as Steven Kotler describes it in Rise of the Superman, flow is where "every action, each decision, leads effortlessly, fluidly, seamlessly to the next. Ever had a moment-perhaps while writing, designing, or working through a complex problem-where you're so focused on a task that the world around you disappears and you're perfectly focused? It feels like you're on autopilot.
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