What Is a Flow State and How Do We Find It?

<h1>River</h1> In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book called Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play. It was the birth of the modern term ‘flow’ for a specific psychological state that has popped up in writings throughout the ages. In the book, Csikszentmihalyi interviews several people who describe a state of ‘effortless effort’; a fulfilling experience of intense concentration during which the rest of the world seems to fall away. Many of the interviewees used the metaphor of being carried by a river or flow. There wasn’t a catchy name for it yet, so Csikszentmihalyi christened it ‘flow’. He described it like this: <blockquote> … the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. </blockquote> Since then, the idea has been imported into many different fields, not unlike <a href="https://medium.com/predict/psychological-antifragility-how-to-thrive-in-the-face-of-adversity-7437dfe5d218" rel="noopener">antifragility, which was the topic of our previous journey into psychology</a> (and in which I briefly mentioned flow at the end). You experience ‘flow’ when nine conditions are met: <ul> <li>Challenge-skill balance: the challenge of the task at hand slightly exceeds your skillset. (Slightly being the keyword.)</li> <li>Action-awareness merger: there is only the here and now, your awareness and your actions in the present become one. (AKA you’re completely absorbed by the task.)</li> <li>Goal clarity: speaks for itself. You know exactly what you’re supposed to do; there is no ambiguity.</li> </ul> <a href="https://medium.com/predict/what-is-a-flow-state-and-how-do-we-find-it-a84215739c29">Visit Now</a>