![]() People in traditional societies find flow in housework, even though it rarely happens in Europe. Leisure activities, which are frequently associated with optimal experience, are not associated with it in Iran. Thus Roma (Gypsy) people very often find flow in raising children or grandchildren, which is not a common pattern elsewhere. Also, in the vast majority of cultures, people don’t associate watching TV with optimal experience.Īlthough optimal experience is described in the same way across countries, some of the flow-conducive activities vary, because of the cultural and circumstantial differences. In fact, most daily activities can lead to optimal experience (another name for flow), as long as the situation is sufficiently complex to activate the high challenge – high skill condition.Īctivities in which flow is a rare occurrence include: housework, idling and resting. Many activities are conducive to flow: sports, dancing, involvement in creative arts and other hobbies, sex, socialising, studying, reading and, very often, working. Yet, like with all truly fulfilling experiences, you know that you were in flow, not while you were there, but because of missing it after.’Īctivities that lead to a flow experience are called autotelic (from Greek: auto=self, telos=goal), because they are intrinsically motivated and enjoyable and have an end in themselves, rather than in some other end product. It is a challenging but not a rough ride. I get totally involved in the conversation. I am not aware of myself, the world around, or the passage of time. ‘A good discussion often brings a sense of flow. One philosopher describes his own experience of flow: One seems to be almost beyond experiencing emotions, most likely because the awareness of self is not present. What is also interesting in flow is the almost total absence of emotions during the actual process. ![]() This means they have an end in themselves (you do something because you want to), with any other end goal often being just an excuse. Activities are intrinsically rewarding.Usually, timepasses much faster than expected. Sense of control over what one is doing, with no worries about failure.Losing awareness of oneself or self-consciousness is also a common experience but, interestingly, after each flow experience the sense of self is strengthened and a person becomes more than he or she was before.The activity becomes almost automatic, and the involvement seems almost effortless (though far from being so in reality). A guitar player merges with the instrument and becomes the music that he plays. Complete concentration on what one is doing at the present moment, with no room in one’s mind for any other information.For example, in a competition you know what you’ve got to achieve and you know exactly how well you are doing, i.e. Clarity of goals and immediate feedback on the progress.He came to the conclusion that flow is a universal experience, which has several important characteristics: Neither of these two cases result in flow.Ĭsikszentmihalyi investigated the phenomenon of flow by interviewing thousands of people from many different walks of life – chess players, mountain climbers, tennis players, ballet dancers, surgeons, etc. If skills exceed challenges, we usually become bored (like bright kids at school). If challenges exceed skills, one can become anxious. So both the challenge and the skills are at high levels, stretching us almost to the limit. The state of flow happens under very specific conditions – when we encounter a challenge that is testing for our skills, and yet our skills and capacities are such that it is just about possible to meet this challenge. ![]() Making Flow Happen: How to Enter the Flow State It is possible that if it wasn’t for the enormous popularity of Flow and for Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi meeting accidentally in Hawaii and becoming friends, the positive psychology movement might have never happened. It became an instant best-seller, making its way to the top self-help classics. ![]() His celebrated book Flow: The psychology of happiness is one of the best examples of a marriage between non-reductionist scientific and deep thinking, within the accessible self-help genre.
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