Author: Brodie Boland
Published on Sep 24th, 2008
http://brodie.nomadlife.org/
Almost all of us have experienced the state of flow at one point in our lives. It's the feeling of being so immersed in a book that when you put it down and look at the clock, hours have passed in what seemed like minutes. It's being 'in the zone' in a basketball game, when it seems as if one is almost able to intuitively sense the position of other players on the court. It's that sense of ease, of effortlessness and energy in the last leg of a long run, when the pace, the hearbeat, the sounds are all in rhythym and one feels as if floating. Csikszentmihalyi, a rather famous psychologist, has studied this state and identified a number of effects, as well as preconditions of flow.
The most immediate effect is the feeling of enjoyment. Csikszentmihalyi found that many of the moments we enjoy most in our lives are those in which we experience flow. And not only are we enjoying ourselves, but we perform best, we feel most empowered afterwards, we leave the activity with a sense of energy, and we develop psychologically through repeated experiences of the flow state. It is, perhaps, one of the most precious of human states.
So what enables flow? There are a number of preconditions, including:
- Clear goals and ongoing feedback
- The ability to concentrate on the task at hand (continuous email checking is, I suspect, one of the greatest barriers to flow for many)
- The ability to immerse oneself in the task, such that one can lose self-consciousness (this is both a cause and effect of flow)
- A balance between one's ability and the challenge at hand, such that one is challenged but not frustrated
- A sense of control over the result
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding (again, both cause and effect)
Along with flow and positive emotions, a third pillar of postive psychology is that of meaning. I interpret meaning to indicate the feelings of importance one has as to their own narrative. In other words, can they tell a story about their life that gives it some significance. In my view, meaning can be seen as flow scaled up from the level of one activity to one's whole life. My sense of meaning in my life is dependent upon whether I am able to enter a more macro state of flow. Do I have clear goals that are in some way tied to a broader narrative I tell about life and the world? Can I immerse myself in my life, or do I feel as if I am never really making contact with the substance of my existence? Am I fit to meet the challenges that life throws my way?
And not only does flow matter at the levels of enjoyment and performance in a moment and of one's sense of meaning in life, but I think that flow also connects us with the most fundamental essence of our existence. As in the state of flow one becomes immersed in a task or experience and loses the sense of self, these flow moments are those in which we most directly participate in the flow of existence itself. We have, even for a moment, released our self-contraction and taken joy in this convergence of a creative process and our own satisfaction.
It is no surprise then, that in these deepest moments of flow a fortunate few members of humanity experience that falling away of self that characterises the mystical revelation. For what is the state of samadhi if not a much deeper form of flow? It is an absorption in the object of concentration such that there is oneness with that object, and, in Buddhism and Hinduism, it is often seen as the staging ground of enlightenment.
And so flow is not only what we enjoy most, when we perform best, and (in extended form), how we derive meaning from life, but it is also a first step on a much more profound journey.
Probably worth turning off the crackberry for ;-)
Labels: Brodie, Leadership, Psychology, Spirituality
