Ever watched a brilliant painter at work? A world-class musician in performance? A sportsman at the peak of their powers? Time flies when you’re having fun.
Or more accurately, time flies when you’re in a “flow state”. It’s as though they work on instinct, isn’t it? The hard things seem easy. They’re at the top of their game, immersed in focus, but everything seems so downright automatic.
Flow is a state of complete absorption in the activity at hand. It’s a state of energised focus and involvement, where nothing else seems to matter. And it transforms our perception of time.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has dedicated his career to understanding these autotelic experiences. Fascinated by painters that became lost in their work, his research has focused on flow experiences across many walks of life.
The accumulating research points to several important conclusions.
First, people seem to be happiest and most creative in a state of flow. Like a form of meditation, flow allows everything else to dissolve into irrelevance. We become one with the activity.
Second, the flow state is our optimal state for intrinsic motivation. When our work facilitates flow, no other carrot compares. Flow breeds engagement and mastery. It exceeds the motivational potency of financial incentives.
Third, to experience a flow state, we should identify Goldilocks activities.
Flow is found when work is neither too hard nor too easy. Flow flourishes when we are stretching ourselves enough to intrigue and engage, but not so much as to demoralise. This is why I run workshops on the neuroscience of flow and self-awareness to help people get in touch with themselves and learn to observe themselves.
Are you aware of the activities that bring you to a flow state? Start observing and noticing yourself.
