Flow The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life

The well renowned founder of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, devised a new theory on a state of being in which he named “flow” after questioning why certain people “live” life and others do not. Mihaly first set off on this intellectual quest after his experiences in a prison camp during WWII. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (1997), Mihaly described this new idea of flow and how it could be reached. Mihaly gives a very simple outlook on life, “Between now and the inevitable end of our days, we can choose to either live or die” (qtd. in WARATC 432). Living in this case is not the act of survival but instead the act of experiencing each moment to its full potential. Existing transforms into

These activities, called “flow activities”, allow a person to focus on a goal that is clear and compatible with what makes them feel serene. Flow activities let you know how you are performing within them. An example of this would be scoring a touchdown or singing a verse without error. These activities are not easy per say but are not so hard that they are a chore either. You obtain the flow feeling when there is a balance between challenge and manageability in overcoming that challenge. Common names for this feeling are “being in the zone”, “ecstasy”, and “aesthetic

As Mihaly puts it, “When we are in flow, we are not happy, because to experience happiness we must focus on our inner states, and that would take away attention from the task at hand” (qtd. in WARATC 435). If you were currently placing first in a race, concentrating on the happiness of being in first could distract you and allow your opponent to take the lead. In a case like that, exiting the flow of the situation could turn the positive moment into a negative one. The difference between flow and happiness is that happiness is dependable on outside circumstances while flow comes from our own making.

In Mihaly’s relationship between challenges and skills graph, flow is placed between arousal and control. Arousal is a state in which you are active, focused, and involved but it lacks strength, cheer, and control. This lack of control prevents true flow as it will leave you feeling powerless as to the outcome of the situation. Complete control is not ideal either. When you have complete control you lack a true sense of importance in the situation or in other words, you could take it for