Education & Career Trends: February 3, 2023
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
- Excerpts are taken from an article published on psychologytoday .com.
Do you wish to discover how to remain attentive and involved in your work? Engaging in a flow state is the answer. One way to describe a state of ‘flow’ is as a kind of effortless attentiveness. We are completely engrossed in our work while we are in flow, and we don’t feel like we are working hard. According to Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, and Harmat (2010), it also incorporates a high-energy strong mood (such as enthusiasm or delight) and distinct physiological activation patterns that reflect both good sensations and high attentiveness.
What are the components of a Flow State?
According to Csikszentmihalyi 1990, flow is thought to involve nine components:
- Challenge–skill balance
- Action–awareness merging
- Clear goals
- Unambiguous feedback
- High concentration
- A sense of control
- Loss of self-consciousness
- Transformation of time
- Autotelic experience
How can you achieve a Flow State?
1. Create internal motivation
- Certain personality features increase our propensity to experience flow states.
- For instance, more frequent experiences of a flow state may be related to intrinsic satisfaction, which is the propensity to appreciate activities themselves even when they are unrelated to extrinsic rewards like money or status.
- According to Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, and Harmat (2010), boredom coping, or the capacity to perform dull tasks in ways that are more pleasurable, may also be connected to flow.
- This implies that increasing our intrinsic drive may make it simpler for us to enter a flow state.
2. Acquire knowledge
- Researchers contend that when working on things in which we have some experience, we may be more likely to enter the flow state.
- When we are skilled at performing a task, we have already automated some of the challenging elements of that task.
- Accordingly, researchers contend that engaging in a difficult task connected to a subject matter in which we already have expertise may differ qualitatively from engaging in a difficult task unconnected to a subject matter of expertise (Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010).
- They claim that focusing on jobs in which we have some competence may make it simpler to enter the zone.
3. Encourage uplifting emotions
- The importance of pleasant feelings should not be overlooked if you want to achieve a flow state.
- Positive feelings could come before or serve as a significant prelude to flow.
- Although we are aware that being in a flow state is nice, many of the experiences that are a component of flow might occur just by feeling good.
- For instance, a review article reminds us that happy feelings can diminish self-consciousness and change how we perceive time.
- According to Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, and Harmat (2010), this means that feeling good may assist us to enter a flow state while feeling bad, like worry, may prevent us from doing so.
4. Take on challenging tasks
- Setting the stage for the above-discussed mental states is a useful first step if we wish to enter a flow state.
- For instance, flow cannot happen while we are engaged in uninteresting or overly simple tasks.
- As a result, we could take care to ensure that the jobs we’re performing are appropriately tough but not so demanding that we suffer.
- Our areas of competence determine whether a certain activity will be difficult for us, thus we may need to brainstorm and experiment to locate our sweet spot (Ullén, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010).
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Have you checked out yesterday’s blog yet?
Underrated But Important Communication Skills Introverts Possess
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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