In my Junior year of undergrad, my basketball team and I were scheduled for a team meeting in a rec room on campus, with our coaches’ only note being “wear something comfy.” Confused and slightly scared, we walked into a room with 15+ yoga mats laid across the gym floor, light ambient music playing in the background, with a woman in a yoga-centric pose sitting in front. That day, we learned techniques to lower outside noise and help us slip into a state of extreme focus before a game. She walked us through mindfulness practices we can use to hone our flow state. This was the first time I learned about this psychological phenomenon.
What is Flow State?
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, or the Father of Flow, first coined the term “flow state” in 1975. The American Psychological Association (APA) describes it as “a state of optimal experience arising from intense involvement in an activity that is enjoyable, such as playing a sport, performing a musical passage, or writing a creative piece.” Learning about this mental state recently made me think about times in my life when I’ve experienced this quality of focus, whether I experienced it myself or witnessed it through the actions of others. I started relating my experiences after reading Csíkszentmihályis core elements of flow state:
“…high level of concentration, a sense of control, and decreased rumination or worry, with a clear goal and immediate feedback. It is also accompanied by an altered sense of time, as we fail to notice the minutes or hours flying by.”
Playing basketball since I was 5 had made the sport become second nature to me. Stepping foot onto a court felt like a second home; I never second-guessed that that’s where I belonged. My experience with flow state showed up in playing 40 min games that felt like 10, or walking off the court disappointed with my scoring performance, only to realize later I was one of the top scorers. One of the main ways we can witness flow states is through sports, more specifically in professional athletes. A good example of this is the famous Michael Jordan Flu Game.
Barely able to stand and throwing up until the moment of tip-off, Jordan is a part of the starting lineup against the Utah Jazz in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Any other player would be riding the bench in such a physical state; Jordan, however, goes on to play 44 minutes and score 35 points to lead the Bulls to victory. You see a performance like this and ask yourself: How is that even possible!?
How is flow state achieved?
Johann Hari, the author of “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again,” shares his ideas on what achieving flow state takes with an average person.
- A goal needs to be defined: To reach this state, the brain must be focusing on one thing and one thing only. Hari explains that distraction and multitasking kill flow, and the brain should use all its power toward one end goal.
- Do something that’s meaningful: If you choose to take part in something that doesn’t interest you, it’s going to be difficult to even make it past this step of reaching a flow state. Your attention needs to be sustainable for long periods of time, and that’s not going to come to fruition if you are trying to focus on something that doesn’t interest you.
- Choose something just outside of your reach: This factor, I believe, played a huge part in Michael Jordan’s Flu Game. Choosing a goal that’s too easy will leave you susceptible to losing interest and, in turn, concentration. Choosing something too hard will likely deter you from continuing and cause you to lose focus. It’s interesting to think about how the unfortunate circumstances that Jordan was experiencing pushed him so far into a mental state that his body and mind went into autopilot.
Everyday occurrences of flow state
Even though the best examples of flow state are from professional athletes, world-class musicians, and death-defying rock climbers, the more I learned, the more I realized that if you look closely, we see people in this trance every day.
I’ve noticed how baristas move around each other and their workspace on a busy Saturday morning. I’ve noticed how my mother sits in the same spot for hours, working on renovating her childhood dollhouse. I’ve been around people who, it seems, if you let them, could talk about the same topic forever.
This transformative state can be found in the simple moments of everyday life. Hari sums up the importance of this flow with one sentence: “…we have within us a force that makes it possible to focus for long stretches and enjoy it, and it will make us happier and healthier, if only we create the right circumstances to let it flow.”
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