The Science of “Going With The Flow”
You know that amazing feeling when you’re completely engrossed in an activity that’s simultaneously challenging and satisfying? When you feel like you could keep at your task for hours and never notice the time flying by? That’s called flow state.
Back when I was a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, I had the good fortune to interview the positive psychologist who coined that term. Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (in case you want to name-drop, it’s pronounced Chick-sent-me-hi-yee), is the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He pioneered the science of flow theory which he defines as “a 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.”
As conceived by Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, the experience of being in flow has eight specific dimensions including:
- Clear goals and immediate feedback
- Balance between the level of challenge and personal skill needed to carry out the task
- Merging of action and awareness
- Focused concentration
- Sense of potential control
- Loss of self-consciousness
- Time distortion
- Self-rewarding experience
When you’re in the flow state you surrender any need to multi-task and instead luxuriate in the nearly lost art of what I call uni-tasking, or doing one thing at a time. If the task - whether it’s playing music, running or working on a professional project - is something meaningful and pleasurable, it can be a terrific de-stressor. Nothing feels better to me than to get into my garden to chop, weed, and dig in the dirt. I’ll think that I’ve been at it for an hour or so when I realize that the sun is setting and four hours have passed. I come inside sweaty and grime-covered, but feeling utterly blissful.
I hope you’ve experienced that joyously paradoxical feeling of being totally relaxed and completely energized at the same time. If not, you’re about to imagine it. If so, you’re about to recapture an “in the flow memory” as you visualize a highly engaging moment from your past.
Try this visualization tool – Finding Your Flow
Read the following exercise all the way through or have someone read it as you close your eyes and follow the meditation.
- Find a comfortable spot where you won’t be disturbed for ten or fifteen minutes. Either lying down or sitting with your feet flat on the floor, close your eyes and begin to focus on your breathing. If your mind wanders, don’t worry about it. Just continually return your focus to your breathing. When you begin to feel relaxed and centered, picture a time when you felt completely focused on a pleasurable task or event. (If you can’t remember a moment like that, imagine one that appeals to you.) You might be engaged in sports, hiking in the woods, playing a game with your children, or involved in an interesting work project. Whatever it is, let it begin to unfold.
- As you let the scene play out, see yourself as if you were watching a movie screen in your mind’s eye. Allow yourself to use all your senses. What do you see in your vision? What are you hearing around you? Are there any pleasant smells wafting from your dream kitchen or coming from your seashore stroll? Are your hands engaged in some activity? What are you touching, feeling, chopping, hauling or painting?
- Give yourself plenty of time to recreate this image. Bring it to a natural conclusion and, when you’re ready, open your eyes in real life and return to the present. Now, think through that image. How did it feel it be so fully engaged that time stood still? What was the project in which you were involved? Did you feel confident? Competent? Is it something you still do regularly? If not, why not?
Now that’s you’ve experienced this blissful state, if only in your mind’s eye, why not get out in the real world and put it into practice today? Ah, sigh...