Finding Flow

Not too long ago, I finished the final revisions of the book I’d been working on for two and a half years. I know the time–1:29 p.m.– because I looked at my watch. The book, Coming About, is the memoir of my client and friend, John K. “Jack” Jouett.  Coming About is the culmination of hours of interviews, long mornings spent sorting through photos and artifacts, weeks of research, and months of writing and re-writing. I walked out of Odin Ink, the publishing arm of the Portland State University Bookstore, with a copy of the book in my bag. Finished!  My husband, Doug, was with me and as we got in the car he asked what I wanted to do to celebrate. Drink a glass of wine? Go out to dinner? I thought for a moment. I didn’t feel the need to do anything.

I kept waiting for some big feeling to hit me.  Surely, after putting so much time and effort into this project, I should feel something now that it’s done. I tried out a few emotions:  Was I feeling relieved? Joyous? Excited?

Hmmm. Nothing really seemed to fit. Was I happy? Yes, I was happy with the book. Yes, I was looking forward to working on some other projects I’d pushed aside for many months. And there was one really precious moment when I handed a copy of the book to Jack and the very first thing he did was to check to make sure that I had included my name as a co-author. That was priceless.  But was I really glad to be done?

The answer was no. The work involved in writing this book allowed me to spend hours and hours of my time doing some of my very favorite things in the whole world. I love writing, reading, doing research, designing, photo editing, interviewing, archiving. This, to me, is as much fun as anything I ever get to do. Why would I ever be happy to stop doing it?

In other words, while working on Jack’s book, I was experiencing the state of full engagement, or flow. As described by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, a leading researcher on creativity as well as the psychology of full engagement, a flow experience is one in which “what we feel, what we wish, and what we think are in harmony” (from Finding Flow, Basic Books: New York, 1997). Athletes call it being “in the zone.” Religious mystics refer to it as “ecstacy.” For many people, being in flow is characterized by losing track of time, by being able to use favorite skills at a challenging task, but having it feel almost effortless.

Yep, that’s what it felt like for much of the time I sat at my desk from morning until night working on this book.  Hours passed without my awareness of time.  I would marvel when research came together, words fell into place, or when I’d stumble across the perfect photograph and knew exactly how it fit.  I didn’t need the project to be finished to feel excited or joyous; I’ve been feeling like that on a regular basis for months. Accomplishment is wonderful.  Sleeping in for a change feels great.  But being in flow beats that hands down.

Csikszentmihalyi’s research outlines several characteristics that increase the likelihood of a flow experience.  As described in his book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, a situation is more likely to produce a flow experience if:

• You have clear goals that require appropriate responses.  There are specific goals established for the activity that eliminate the need to question what you should be doing or how you should do it.  This may be why athletes find games flow-producing. In sports, the rules are very clear about what needs to happen and how it should be done. But the same is true for any activity for which the goals are clear–mixing paint, practicing a scale on the piano, or crafting a sentence.
• You receive clear and relevant feedback on your activities. You know how you are doing at every moment.  You take steps that move you closer to the top of the mountain; you see the stitches accumulate on your knitting needles; you finish the next chapter of the book.
• You must stretch your skills to accomplish the task, but the stretch feels manageable. If the challenges are too great for your skills, you may be frustrated or anxious.  If the challenges are too low, you may be bored.  But when the challenges are high and your skills are equally matched, you may find, like Goldilocks, a situation that is “just right.”

As Csikszentmihalyi writes,

When goals are clear, feedback relevant, and challenges and skills are in balance, attention becomes ordered and fully invested.  Because of the total demand on psychic energy, a person in flow is completely focused.  There is no space in consciousness for distracting thoughts, irrelevant feelings. Self-consciousness disappears, yet one feels stronger than usual. The sense of time is distorted: hours seem to pass by in minutes.  When a person’s entire being is stretched in the full functioning of body and mind, whatever one does becomes worth doing for its own sake; living becomes its own justification.  In the harmonious focusing of physical and psychic energy, life comes into its own.

Being in flow means being completely absorbed in the moment, and that moment is wonderful.  You are focused, calm, alive.  Which is not the same thing as being happy.  Csikszentmihalyi makes a distinction between being happy and being in flow.   As he says,

One can be happy without experiencing flow.  We can be happy experiencing the passive pleasure of a rested body, a warm sunshine, the contentment of a serene relationship. These are also moments to treasure, but this kind of happiness is very vulnerable and dependent on favorable circumstances.  The happiness that follows flow is of our own making, and it leads to increasing complexity and growth of consciousness.

Certain activities are more likely to produce flow than others, including work (yes, work, even if it is work you don’t really like), active leisure (like sports or hobbies, as opposed to passive leisure, like watching television), and through relationships with other people.  This is why this discussion on flow appears on a website discussing psychology and story:  developing optimal engagement in one’s life is something over which each of us has some control.  I believe that the benefits gained from flow-producing activities is the same as the benefits gained from intentionally telling one’s life-story.  They both encourage you to pay attention.  Both activities lead me to the same conclusions: