By Keena Page
“Challenge yourself; it’s the only path which leads to growth.”
Cooking has always been my stress relief. There is just something about cutting up vegetables, mixing everything together, and tasting in between adding spices and herbs. Not to mention, the smiles on everyone’s faces after food has been served never fail to warm my heart.
I remember when I first heard about the concept of flow, which is essentially the state one is in when they are at a peak performance level and are harnessing high levels of skill and challenge (Clement et al., n.d.). Learning what flow was, my mind immediately went to cooking!! In a funny way, I started to see flow as a recipe, complete with measurements and steps. Of course, the measurements are completely made up, but, just as in cooking, there are certain ‘ingredients’ vital to flow that I will share below. Hopefully this will help you understand what flow is and how you can cook up flow experiences for yourself!
RECIPE FOR FLOW
SERVINGS: 1
PREPPING TIME: VARIABLE
COOKING TIME: VARIABLE
INGREDIENTS
2 C Challenge
2 C Skill
1/4 C of Clear Goals
1 Tbsp Immediate Feedback
6 oz Intrinsic Reward
*Baked in a 70º F distraction-free environment until sufficient flow is achieved*
DIRECTIONS
Step 1: First and foremost, you need equal parts of challenge and skill. If you don’t have enough of either, you may actually stumble into a different state of being, sort of like if you add too much salt to a recipe. For example, if the challenge is too high, you may experience anxiety, and too much skill may lead to boredom. To make sure that you have enough challenge and skill, you must also be sure to prepare adequately. Not having the ingredients or tools I need for cooking adds too much external stress unrelated to my skill or challenge level. Remember, external factors can influence the amount of flow that you can experience. So, if you do not have what you need, you run a risk of distracting yourself from your flow state.
Step 2: You have to marinate your flow in your clear goals and desired outcomes. Without a recipe, I don’t think I’d be able to make anything new and still have it be the least bit edible. Likewise, without a clear, specific goal as your base, your experience isn’t leading anywhere. A study of American MTurk workers was conducted where they received training in SMART goal-setting and reported their flow experience. Those who participated in the intervention reported feeling more flow at work as well as other positive benefits, such as less stress and even a higher performance level. They also reported a more stable sense of flow across time, whilst the control group reported a reduction in flow later in the week (Weintraub et al., 2021). Keep in mind that ‘success’ is not a clear enough goal. In fact, too much of a focus on success itself can distract you and cause you to lose track of your goal, which is producing something. This is why using SMART goal-setting can be such a great way to make sure that your goals are crystal clear.
TIP: I also make sure that I give myself enough time to complete my meal rather than running around like a chicken whose head has been chopped off! (And sometimes, giving yourself a time limit may up the challenge, if your skill is equal to the task).
Step 3: Next, incorporating a healthy dose of feedback is important. This feedback must be immediate and specific for it to do any good. For example, tasting my food (or frequently asking others to try the food) throughout my cooking process provides great feedback for me! If it tastes great, I’m doing something right, and I could possibly even think of ways to improve it. If it tastes a little off (such as too little flavor or too much salt), it’s an increased challenge to find the right spice or method to fix it. This is also a great time to practice self-compassion and building your confidence (see the self-compassion module for more). Constantly focusing on negative feedback (whether from yourself or from others) can toss you right out of your flow. Remember that your skill should be EQUAL to your challenge, so telling yourself otherwise may shift the balance.
NOTE: Feedback can come from yourself, such as my tastebuds while cooking, or it can come from other factors. A unique study of flow amongst metal musicians even found that flow was contingent upon emotions, experiences with others such as their bandmates or the fans, the concert, and even clothes (Hamilton et al., 2019)! The atmosphere of their concert along with with the reactions of fans, as well as the sense of belonging that comes through their clothing style all served as feedback that their performance was doing well.
Step 4: Lastly, your chosen activity has to produce something that is intrinsically rewarding. Do you enjoy what you do? If not, is it rewarding in some other aspect? No one pays me to cook. I genuinely enjoy learning new recipes, even if they are a lot of hard work, because it means I have learned something new that I can use in the future. You don’t even have to feel joy or satisfaction to have flow. In fact, flow isn’t even meant to be fun. It is meant to foster growth. A great example is back with our heavy metal musicians. They reported feeling anger (which makes sense, considering their music genre) in their music which increased their flow. Researchers dug deep as to why this was the case and found that their anger related to their intrinsic identity and was a part of their overall goal of creating passionate music (Hamilton et al., 2019). It is, in a sense, similar to the experience one can have in writing a sad song or story, where your emotions add to the overall experience. As long as you feel value in what you are doing, you will become immersed in it.
And, Bon appétit! If you have followed these directions carefully, you should be on your way to achieving flow! Of course, the process is deeply personal, but the outcomes are the same. For example, you may feel an increased sense of control, a loss of self-consciousness, and a complete transformation of time (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). I may even consider these the umami flavors of your flow experience. ;) So, give it a shot with your desired activity, whether it is running, knitting, or solving puzzles! I would encourage you to share your own personal recipe of flow with us and with others! It could change your life.
“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”
REFERENCES
Clement, Z., Gammell, B., & Bekker, J. (n.d.). What is flow? My Best Self 101. https://www.mybestself101.org/flow-what
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. Basic Books.
Hamilton, A. K., Pernía, D. M., Puyol Wilson, C., & Carrasco Dell’Aquila, D. (2019). What makes metalheads happy? A phenomenological analysis of flow experiences in metal musicians. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 16(4), 537–565. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2017.1416210
Weintraub, J., Cassell, D., & DePatie, T. P. (2021). Nudging flow through ‘SMART’ goal setting to decrease stress, increase engagement, and increase performance at work. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 94(2), 230–258. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12347