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Have you heard of the concept of flow?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American psychologist who passed away on 20th October 2021. I’ve been aware of his work for ages and have become fascinated by the concept of flow. 

‘In his best selling book ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience’ Csíkszentmihályi outlined his theory that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow—a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. Flow is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what they are doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterised by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.’  Wikipedia

Doesn’t flow sound great?

You know that feeling when you are doing something or working on something and absolutely nothing else matters. You are in a world of your own and you could keep doing the activity or work forever and it would never get boring or dull? 

This is FLOW.

It would make sense that we would want to spend as much time as possible in our personal & professional lives in a state of flow which Mihaly explains is a necessity for our happiness and well being. 

Below is Mihaly’s model of flow in relation to challenge and ability. 

‘To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur as both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.’ Wikipedia

How important is this model in terms of our personal and professional lives?

It is a quick and simple explanation of what we feel when we are either challenged too much or too little and what we feel when we possess or do not possess skills & abilities required to meet these challenges. 

How helpful would this be in terms of happiness in our personal and professional lives? 

What it does show is that to be happy, confident, contented & focused you need to be continuously challenged and continuously growing your skillset to match those challenges. 

Fascinating eh?

Here are two amazing Ted Talks from the late, great Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

As well as explaining flow, in the video below, Mihaly also talks about the relationship between happiness & money and how it’s not a linear relationship meaning that gaining more and more money past a certain point will not bring you happiness!

TED Talk – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow – 2004

In this Ted Talk, Mihaly goes deeper into the relationship between happiness and flow. 

Living in flow – the secret of happiness with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Happiness & Its Causes 2014

Lean philosophy is all about growth of people in the workplace to ensure growth of business. There wouldn’t be much growth of people or business if everyone were anxious, worried, apathetic or bored! 

Hence the necessity to prioritise people’s skill development and challenge to match.  

This ensures your workforce are alert, focused, happy, confident and contented. All necessities for people & business growth.

I’m in flow when I spend time with family & friends or when I am writing, reading, creating content, teaching, learning/researching, exercising, traveling, taking/editing photos. Not surprising then that these are my passions in life. 

When are you in flow?

Is your work/business in flow?

How can you bring more flow into your life?

Here’s to more flow in all of our lives!

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Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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