And, this seems to be correlated with the growing body of evidence that flow improves one’s subjective well-being and psychological well-being. People, such as athletes, who experience flow regularly are more likely to develop positive traits, including higher self-esteem, better concentration, and general performance. The joyful experience of being in flow leads to better performance, motivation towards long-term goals, and other overall positive effects.Įver been so lost in an activity that you lost sense of time? You were so immersed in whatever you were doing at the moment that you didn’t notice the time passed. In other words, flow is like the saying, “getting lost in one’s work.” What is Flow?Īccording to distinguished Psychology Professor and management founder & co-director of the Quality of Life Research Center (QLRC) Mahily Csikszentmihalyi, “flow” is a joyful state of mind one enters when trying to reach a goal in a challenging activity that is well suited to our skills.Ĭziksentmihalyi defines flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” So, let’s take a look at what Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow and happiness is, and how you can use it’s principles to hack your mind into a naturally more motivated state. We all want to live a more fruitful, happier life - right? This highly focused mental state is what Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.” Thanks to his research and studies, we better understand what being in the zone does to our happiness and intrinsic motivation.

There are many ways to describe the trance-like focus an athlete or an artist goes into during competition: fierce focus, in the zone, locked in, obsessed, complete immersion. Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing.Intensive Outpatient Program / Case Management.

Psychology of flow