How Can I experience Flow?

Flow experiences are available to everyone

Since flow experiences are frequently described as happening to professional athletes, artists, it may be tempting to think that only highly skilled people can have those kinds of experiences. The good news is that flow experiences aren’t limited to only people who have time or money to pursue expensive hobbies—experience sampling methods have been used to study flow experiences in many types of people having many different experiences. In addition, flow experiences aren’t limited to people with a certain “flow personality,” as flow appears to be more related to the kinds of experiences that people have than it is to personality traits. Various interventions have also been shown successful at increasing flow experiences. All of this suggests that if you’re willing to put in effort, you can increase the amount of flow experiences you have. 

A review of necessary components of flow

As described in the “What is flow” page, clear goals, immediate feedback, and a balance of high skill and high challenge are all necessary components for having flow experience. If you’re trying to have flow in a particular activity, you could ask yourself the following questions to determine whether the conditions of flow are met.

1. Do you know exactly what you want to accomplish and the steps for how to get there? Do you know your overall objective, or are you unclear about what exactly you’re supposed to be doing?

2. Do you know immediately whether you are on the right track or not? If so, what are the indicators?

3. Is this task going to require effort to achieve your goal or objective? Do you feel like it will utilize a large amount of your skills? 

If the activity doesn’t immediately fit into all of these criteria there are several methods you can use to modify the activity so it will elicit flow.

Changing your challenge-skill balance

One good way to increase your likelihood of having flow in an activity is to ensure that you’ve prepared adequately for the activity. Preparation for a difficult activity increases likelihood for flow because it can help people attain the skill level necessary to complete the task. Adequate preparation for an activity can also help people have higher self-confidence, therefore reducing self-conscious thoughts and increasing levels of flow. Preparing adequately for an activity may take time, but it can be rewarding.

Another way to increase your chances of having flow is to give yourself more time to complete the activity. When your ability to complete a task is below the skill level required of the task, investing more time can help you better complete the task, and experience flow rather than failure. When you have more time to complete a task overall, you can spend more time on the parts of the task that are difficult rather than feeling stressed about completing them. Giving yourself more time to complete the activity can also reduce the pressure of succeeding at the activity, and can help you focus on your present experience. 

“one would expect that people living in the incredibly harsh conditions of the arctic regions, or in the Kalahari desert, would have little opportunity to enjoy their lives. Yet even the most severe natural conditions cannot entirely eliminate flow. The [Inuit] in their bleak, inhospitable lands learned to sing, dance, joke, carve beautiful objects, and create an elaborate mythology to give order and sense to their experiences. Possibly the snow dwellers and the sand dwellers who couldn’t build enjoyment into their lives eventually gave up and died out. But the fact that some survived shows that nature alone cannot prevent flow from happening.”

Developing a flow-friendly mental state

One important way to prime your mind for flow is to develop positive self-talk. 

Csikszentmihalyi writes in his book on flow that self-consciousness can interfere with flow experiences because it draws attention away from the flow experience. This idea has empirical support—people with less negative self-talk tend to experience more flow. Before you participate in a challenging activity, remind yourself that being encouraging will be more helpful to you than being harsh on yourself. Notice the things that you say to yourself during the activity, and try to replace negative thoughts about yourself with positive thoughts. 

Excessive focus on success can also reduce one’s chances of experiencing flow. Athletes report that having too much focus on whether they’re winning or losing can keep them from having a flow state. In fact, skilled athletes may experience less flow during competitions than less-skilled athletes because they’re more focused on whether they win or lose than the less-skilled athletes. A focus on the outcome of the activity can take away from focus on the activity, which can reduce your skill level in the moment and reduce flow. So, if you’re trying to have a flow experience, try to focus more on the experience you’re having and less on what rewards you might get from that experience.

Mindfulness can also help you have more flow. Mindfulness involves training your brain to focus better on the present moment, and to be less caught up in irrelevant worries. People with higher levels of trait mindfulness tend to have more flow experiences. Interventions using mindfulness to produce more flow have been used somewhat extensively with athletes, and have been shown to help people have more flow experiences. Although we don’t have time here to explain mindfulness more thoroughly, see our mindfulness module for more advice on how to cultivate this mental ability. 

Social flow

Having flow on your own is very meaningful and satisfying. Interestingly enough, some evidence suggests that activities involving others can lead to more rewarding flow experiences and can lead to more frequent flow experiences. To have these social flow activities, you could simply involve others in your activity and perform the activity side-by-side. To have a more complex and flow-friendly experience, you could change the nature of your activity to involve more interaction with others. For example, if you enjoy painting, you could paint in a studio next to one of your friends, having a side-by-side flow experience. You could also increase the complexity of the experience by jointly producing a painting, building on each other’s ideas and skills. Social flow can be more rewarding than other types of activities because other people are more complex than a fixed task, increasing the challenge level. In addition, other people can encourage you when you’re struggling or take over when you’re reaching the edge of your limits, which can help you have more flow experiences. 

When flow doesn’t happen

It’s important to remember that many external factors can prevent people from having flow. Ice skaters, for example, report experiencing less flow when their partner makes a mistake, when the audience doesn’t cheer, or when their performance is interrupted. In addition, some activities may be less conducive to flow by their nature, and even a dedicated attempt to transform them into flow experiences may not be successful. If this is the case, don’t be hard on you because you can’t achieve flow. You might try to have more flow experiences by expanding your horizons and trying new things. With a bit of skill built up, you can experience flow doing new activities or hobbies you didn’t even know you’d like.