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Flow
When you are absorbed in an activity, everything else becomes meaningless and you feel like time is standing still. This is precisely when you experience a moment of ‘flow’ – because you are completely engrossed in your task.
For me personally, it’s like that when I’m swimming. I swim length after length and immerse myself in this wonderful state of being, metre after metre. Usually it takes me barely 20 minutes to forget about everything around me and arrive completely in the here and now. My attention is fully focused on my movements and my breathing: breathing in, breathing out. I continue to glide through the water, ever more easily. My eyes are fixed on the bottom of the pool, where the surface of the water is reflected, creating an image like a kaleidoscope. My head is free. With no thoughts distracting me, I float through the water and feel the water resistance against my skin. Although all this feels effortlessly easy, I am exploring my own physical limits, metre by metre. Kilometres later, when I decide to leave the water, it is like waking up from a dream.
“I love flow – the state in which everything is possible and in which I feel as close to my body as I have ever been.”
Do you know this feeling? When was the last time you were in flow?
What is flow?
If you have experienced flow, you probably also know how intoxicating it can be. But what is flow, exactly, and how is it possible to achieve this euphoria?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was one of the first scientists to investigate and describe the state of flow. As he understands it, flow is on the one hand a state of consciousness in which you are completely absorbed in an activity, without having any other thoughts or feelings. On the other hand, flow encompasses both hyperfocus and joy, created by a harmonious interplay between body and mind.
My flow experience when swimming is not unusual. According to experts, you have a very good chance of experiencing a flow state when you do endurance sports. The repetitive, cyclical motion sequence demands the absorption and perfect focus that facilitate a flow experience. However, you can get into a flow state during plenty of other actions and activities.
Characteristic for flow is absolute concentration focused on a specific task or activity, during which you take in nothing of what is going on around you. This hyperfocus enables you to leave behind everyday worries, stress, disturbing thoughts and negative feelings, and to forget everything for a moment. In turn, this enables you to single-mindedly use all your energy for whatever you are doing, which usually means better performance too. Also typical for a flow experience is the flow being immediately interrupted as soon as you turn your attention to something else. Yet another flow experience feature is that you completely lose yourself in your activity. At this moment, you are not thinking either of yourself or of what you are doing right now. Impressive, isn’t it?
What do you need for a flow experience?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the flow research pioneer, has described eight elements of flow, of which the first three are essential prerequisites for a flow experience.
The 8 characteristics of flow
#1 Clarity of goals and immediate feedback
As many types of sport and many artistic pursuits supply these conditions, they are frequently described as “classic” flow activities. When in a flow state, people have a clear aim in view. For example, a tennis player has the aim of hitting the ball into her opponent’s half. What’s more, she is aware of what she needs to win the match – the rules are clear, and she will directly experience the success or failure of every single action. It is important, however, that the person takes note of the feedback themselves. If people don’t recognise feedback for what it is, they cannot know if they are any closer to their goal. It then becomes difficult to focus attention on this activity again: the feeling that an action has slipped out of our grasp leads to the activity being perceived as less enjoyable – the flow state is over.
#2 Intensive concentration and focus on the task in hand
Great concentration enables us to immerse ourselves deeply in an activity. In a flow state, focusing your attention on what you are doing will be no effort, consequently making it easy to concentrate. This is connected to the fact that humans can only take in a limited amount of information at once. The flow requires so much capacity for the challenge of the current activity that all other information slips into the background, facilitating full concentration on what you are doing. In reports about personal flow experiences, the effortless concentration is the element that people most often talk about.
#3 The correct ratio between demands and abilities
To make a flow experience possible, the task’s degree of difficulty must be in the right proportion to the ability of the person doing it. If the challenge is too great, this will result in feelings of tension, fear and frustration. If, by contrast, the task is too easy and is seen as simple, it will be experienced as routine, with feelings such as boredom and reluctance. Consequently, to achieve a flow state, you need to move between the poles of excessive and insufficient demand. The requirements made of you must be high enough for the activity to be neither boring nor scary. It should give you joy, because the task “teases out” precisely those abilities that are required to do it. In this way you unlock your abilities and exploit your potential.
#4 Feeling of control
A heightened feeling of control over what you are doing is typical for a flow state. If you have clear goals that receive regular feedback, a control state can ensue. In such moments, you feel that you have the situation under control. The actions begin to flow and the situation “flies”. Your abilities are available to the extent that they can control your actions within a specific context. This subjective feeling of being in control is an essential part of the flow experience and describes a state of serenity and freedom from fear.
#5 Ease of the course of action
The effortlessness of the course of action is what gave the flow experience its name. Everything flows easily and harmoniously, even when the action, for example a tennis match or a solo concert, requires a considerable amount of energy when viewed externally. Although the activity seems demanding and strenuous from the outside, people in a flow state subjectively perceive very little exertion. The activity flows effortlessly and seems to have its own internal logic.
#6 Ceasing to be aware of time
A changed perception of time is characteristic for a flow experience. When an activity is over, many people are astonished by how much time has passed. By contrast, during the activity itself, you often feel that you have been doing it for a long time. Time expands and contracts as part of the experience: hours fly by, but a minute feels like an hour. Therefore psychologists talk about a “timeless” flow mode.
#7 Actions and awareness merge
The feeling of being merged with the action comes from directing your attention and concentration fully onto an action in a flow state, with everything else fading away completely. Your attention is so fully focused on what you are doing that other thoughts, such as “Am I doing this right?” or “Can I really do this?” cannot get a foot in the door or find a place in your head. In the literature, a rock climber describes this state as “...you don’t see yourself separately from what you’re doing”. The feeling of being absorbed by the activity can accordingly develop into a feeling of transcendence, an impression of being connected with everything associated with the activity. This does not mean that you lose awareness. Rather, it means that you lose awareness of yourself for a certain length of time. This “self-less” state in flow has been described by many people as a moment free from worry and physical complaints.
#8 Feeling that the activity is rewarding in and of itself
An autotelic quality is ascribed to the flow experience. This means that it is not the results of an action that are perceived as gratifying, but the action itself. In other words, the aim of the activity lies largely in the activity. Acting in flow is consequently also described as an “immediate return on investment”.
Do you know what the magical thing about flow is? You can’t force it and it isn’t commonplace. Flow experiences come and go. That’s why it is important to enjoy them when they are there and to take the strength and calm they give you into your daily life.
References:
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety: Experiencing flow in work and play. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding Flow: The Psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2010). Das fow-Erlebnis. (11. Aufl.). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Jackson, S. (1995). Factors influencing the occurrence of flow state in elite athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 7, 138–166.
Jackson, S. (1996). Toward a conceptual understanding of the flow experience in elite athletes. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 67, 76–90.
Nüssli, S. & Fischer, S. Flow im Sport: Wenn es wie von alleine geht. Blogbeitrag. FitforLife.ch.
