Getting in the Flow

What does it really mean to get into the flow? Does it work the same for all of us? Valley Fiber Life's Dr. Creativity has some insights on "the flow" and how it is used to accomplish and create.

Creativity is generally addictive for a very good reason - the sensation of being in a state of full concentration or hyper-concentration is pleasant and productive. The author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi devotes three works to this and related topics. Here is how he describes this state of flow: 

Over and over again, as people describe how it feels when they thoroughly enjoy themselves, they mention eight distinct dimensions of experience. These same aspects are reported by Hindu yogis and Japanese teenagers who race motorcycles, by American surgeons and basketball players, by Australian sailors and Navajo shepherds, by champion figure skaters and by chess masters. These are the characteristic dimensions of the flow experience: 

1. Clear goals: an objective is distinctly defined; immediate feedback: one knows instantly how well one is doing.

2. The opportunities for acting decisively are relatively high, and they are matched by one's perceived ability to act. In other words, personal skills are well suited to given challenges.

3. Action and awareness merge; one-pointedness of mind.

4. Concentration on the task at hand; irrelevant stimuli disappear from consciousness, worries and concerns are temporarily suspended.

5. A sense of potential control.

6. Loss of self-consciousness, transcendence of ego boundaries, a sense of growth and of being part of some greater entity.

7. Altered sense of time, which usually seems to pass faster.

8. Experience becomes autotelic: If several of the previous conditions are present, what one does becomes autotelic, or worth doing for its own sake. 

Dr. Creativity is also known as Leslie Owen Wilson, PhD.  

Her work has included graduate courses in a number of areas, such as brain-based education, philosophical foundations of education, creativity; newer views of learning; curriculum; reflective teaching; and the models of teaching and learning, amongst others.   To learn more about Dr. Wilson's work, visit her at the Creativity Index. 

Find more articles on creativity in the Creativity & Inspiration area. 

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