What is a Flow state? Subjectively?
“What is flow?”. I’m often asked to explain the concept to those with little or no psychological background knowledge and if caught off guard, I do sometimes struggle. I can offer quick, 5-word answers. But I know I won’t be able to relay the true importance of this psychological state and the wealth of benefits it provides in such a succinct sentence.
It is of course possible to draw on operational definitions, or list terms such as ‘performance enhancement’ or ‘positive motivation’ that are associated with the state. Yet, they seem to blur the inspirational passion found within the writings of the father of flow’s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, writings on the topic.
Therefore, I offer the following example, from my own experiences, in the hope of accurately conveying from a subjective stance, what it is like to be in flow:
Consider an experienced runner with a passion for nature and learning, who performs and enjoys, for no other reason than the enjoyment of the activity itself, a lengthy run through an area of countryside unfamiliar to him. The difficulty of the gradient and terrain would be of a high difficulty, but would be matched to or slightly above the runner’s skills at pacing himself. The runner would not experience any fear of not making it to the end, knows exactly what is expected of him as he takes every step, and is in tune with his actions. He receives immediate feedback from his body as to how well he is performing. Throughout the hour long journey, our runner would feel as though time had transformed. At times it would appear to have slowed down as he experienced every movement and breath, yet at others the past 5 minutes would have flashed by. At no point would he stop to consider whether if he passes another individual, what they would think. He is wholly absorbed and in tune with the experience. And most beautifully of all, the majority of this wouldn’t be realised until he stopped, deeply satisfied.
If you want to find out more, I suggest my personal favourite to come from Csikszentmihalyi’s pen; The Evolving Self http://www.harpercollins.com/web-sampler/9780060921927
Adam Gibson: uk.linkedin.com/in/adamgibson991/
‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’