Most satisfying sense of being alive is when people are in a mental state called “Flow,” where they are completely absorbed in doing a challenging task that requires skill and expertise. They enjoy doing this work so much that it feels like time flies by. 1 2
The reward? Doing this activity brings a sense of pure joy and satisfaction. It’s like a superpower that activates within you, making you feel unstoppable and capable. You genuinely enjoy the experience and would love to do it again and again.
How does it feel?
- It’s like a rush of pure joy and excitement.
- You’re completely focused on the task at hand, with no room for self-doubt or worry.
- You have complete clarity about what needs to be done and how you’re doing it.
- You feel confident in your abilities and have a strong belief in your capacity to finish the task successfully.
- Time seems to whiz past as you get completely lost in the moment.
- Engaging in activities that produce flow becomes its own reward, eliminating the need for external motivation or incentives.
Flow is used as a coping skill for stress and anxiety 3 when productively pursuing a form of leisure that matches one’s skill set.
The following graph with the level of challenge on Y-Axis and the level of skill on X-Axis depicts the range of states that we experience.
It might appear that watching movies takes us to this ‘flow state’ but it can be seen in the above chart that this activity has no challenge or skill involved and thus falls into ‘boredom’ category.
Footnotes
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Named by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1970 ↩
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Mirvis, Philip H. (July 1991). “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Csikszentmihalyi Michael. New York: Harper & Row, 1990, 303 pp., $19.95, cloth”. Academy of Management Review. 16 (3): 636–640. doi:10.5465/amr.1991.4279513. ISSN 0363-7425. ↩