What is the key to happiness? What is the purpose of someone’s life? What makes life meaningful?
These universal questions are apparent in everyone’s lives. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi answered, “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… the best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” He keyed this idea as a flow state. Flow state is the feeling of being entirely engaged and immersed in the task you are doing. While in the depth of flow state, it is intense focus coupled with clarity and happiness. In the flow state, an individual knows exactly what they are doing and what they want to do, and feelings of discomfort, fatigue, and hunger seem to go away and you are absorbed in the task at hand. Time seems to feel arbitrary, as a few hours seem to feel like a few minutes.
So how do we achieve flow?
How to Achieve Flow State: Flow Triggers
Currently, there are 22 flow triggers, which as the name suggests, help initiate flow state. Here are a couple of useful ones:
- Challenge-Skills Balance: We are most attentive to a task when it is a little bit harder than our current skill set, making the task challenging and worthwhile when we do achieve it. This graph describes the feelings that arise when taking on a task with varying levels of challenge and skill.
- Waking up at the best time for you: when is your brain most awake? Do you feel best waking up early or later? Depending on this, block out time to focus singularly on whatever task.
- Block out distractions. Leave your phone in another room, turn out notifications, and declutter your room. Give yourself the space necessary to focus on the task at hand.
- Feedback loop: Find ways to assess your progress continually; this can help you feel like you’re getting closer to your goal, motivating you.
- Passion, curiosity, and purpose: Engaging in tasks that you find meaningful and worthwhile triggers the dopamine in your brain, which translates to happiness. Purpose aligns your actions with your values and aspirations, prompting you to become more focused. Curiosity and passion fuel a drive that prompts you to learn more and immerse yourself in your task.
- Risk: Engaging in activities that are risky and exciting enhances your flow state, allowing you to experience something new and become more alert.
Flow state can happen to anyone at any time, but I think it does take some experimenting to learn how to initiate it for yourself. Ironically, you can try too hard to get into flow state, distracting yourself from the task at hand. However, give it a try and you might find that the flow state works for you.
Sources:
https://www.headspace.com/articles/flow-state
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znwUCNrjpD4&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rIjFCNay2Q
https://www.flickr.com/photos/caseorganic/5528981189
https://www.flowresearchcollective.com/blog/flow-triggers