Flow states and quality of life

The psychological conditions that make flow states possible seem to be the same all over the world: studies have suggested the phenomenology of enjoyment has eight major components (as reported in "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist).

1. A challenging activity that requires skills

By far the overwhelming proportion of optimal experiences are reported to occur within sequences of activities that are goal directed and bounded by rules (not necessarily a physical skill).

2. The merging of action and awareness

When all a person’s relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenges of a situation, that person’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity. There is no excess psychic energy left over to process any information but what the activity offers.

3. Clear goals and feedback

The reason it is possible to achieve such complete involvement in a flow experience is that goals are usually clear and feedback immediate. A tennis player always knows what she has to do, returns the ball into the opponent’s court and each time she hits the ball she knows whether she has done well or not.

4. Concentration on the task at hand

One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that one can forget all the unpleasant aspects of life, requiring a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand, leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information.

5. The paradox of control

Lack of worry about losing control, typical of many situations of normal life.

6. The Loss of self-consciousness

One item that disappears from awareness deserve special attention because in normal time we spend so much time thinking about it: our own self. It becomes an ego less thing, a loss of the sense of self, separate from the world around it, sometimes accompanied by a feeling of union with the environment whether it is the physical environment or a team you are sharing something with.

7. There is no worry of failure

While in flow we are too involved to be concerned with failure. The reason that failure is not an issue is that in flow it is clear what has to be done and our skills are potentially adequate to the challenges.

8. The transformation of time

One of the most common description of optimal experience is that time no longer passes the way it ordinarily does. The orderly progression of clocks is rendered irrelevant by the rhythms dictated by the activity.

The Coaching sessions aim at creating flow states, whether by stated choice of the client or by consequence. And once they start experiencing those states...the quality of their life increases dramatically.