Do you feel that time passes faster when you do an activity you like? Flow is a state where people manage to be in the present and get closer to happiness. Find out
Have you ever felt like time stopped? Do you enjoy one activity so much that you forget about everything else? Flow means precisely this. The positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi was the first to study this phenomenon and all the benefits for our mental health. Letting everything flow is the key in many cases to finding happiness. But it can learn to flow?
He meaning of flow with life It is to indicate the mental state in which a person is almost completely immersed in an activity. This term was investigated through the studies of psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who precisely explained that flow and its meaning were related to a state of complete immersion in a specific activity.
When people enter this moment where do they Let life flow they feel completely involved and focused in everything they are doing.
In this situation wheres individuals flow, their ego and perception of time fades due to the state of high concentration they have entered. In flow, attention is one of the key factors for this psychological state to happen.
The best moments of our lives are not the passive, receptive and relaxing moments. . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limit in a voluntary effort to achieve something difficult and valuable.”
Mihály Csikszentmihalyi
Who is Mihály Csíkszentmihályi?
Csikszentmihalyi became one of the researchers on the psychology of happiness. His story led him to experience the harsh conditions of being a prisoner during World War II, something that made him interested in knowing how one could be happy in the face of adversity.
When the war ended he came across a lecture by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who spoke of the traumatized psyche of those who had suffered the terrible experiences of war. In this way, based on Jung’s research, he began to study the causes of happiness.
Through his studies, this researcher concluded that happiness is actually an internal state of being and not something that should be sought externally. To collect all these conclusions he wrote the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experiencewhere it is based on the fact that to find happiness you must resort to this flow state
According to the author, everyone can learn to flow The reason is that happiness is not a rigid and immutable state but rather reaching it requires effort on the part of people.
Benefits of flow
Enter this state where everything flows It has its benefits for our psyche. According to psychologists, when someone begins to flow with life through effort and creativity, they manage to improve in these aspects.
1. Emotional regulation
Studies showed that people who learn to flow Along with their favorite activities, they experience greater growth toward better understanding their emotional complexity. Being able to spend more time in this state of flow in your life can be beneficial in learning to regulate emotions in a more effective way.
2. Enjoy the present
Those individuals who flow They manage to enjoy the present much more and leave behind those thoughts that take them to the past or the future. One of the problems today is that most people tend to have their minds full of recurring thoughts that do not help them be in the present. In the state of flow, people are able to be in the here and now because they are really enjoying what they are doing.
3. More happiness
To the learn to flow What we do allows us to experience more levels of happiness. According to research, the meaning of flow is related to greater satisfaction and self-actualization.
Intrinsic motivation involves doing things not to obtain external but internal rewards. One who flowing Through activities that you enjoy, you have a positive state of mind that helps you motivate yourself to continue towards your goals and successes.
5. Greater concentration
As we have already mentioned, one of the keys to let everything flow It is in our attention. Attention is a focus towards where we direct our concentration. In this way, we could say that it works like a flashlight, where the light is is where we put our attention. When people flow, we are focusing our focus on a single task and not allowing it to disperse over many tasks (as in multitasking).
6. Learning and skill development
The people that they learn to flow with life They tend to develop more skills and learn more. The reason is precisely that by focusing only on one task, they tend to make more progress in it and tend to achieve their goals faster.
7. More creativity
Research has shown that the majority of people flow more with creative tasks than with other types of activities. According to their studies, learning to flow also helped you be more creative in all areas of your life.
Features of flow
To be able to understand How does this flow work?, there are some keys that we can identify when we are in this state. Mainly flow and its meaning is characterized by the following.
1. Complete concentration
When you let everything flow People tend to focus all their concentration on the activity being carried out.
2. Clarity in goals
When let everything flow It implies that the person is enjoying what they do and is clear about their goals. This allows the activity to be developed better and the set objectives to be reached sooner.
3. Time transformation
Another of the most defining characteristics of state of flow It is precisely the acceleration and deceleration that is experienced when life is allowed to flow. In this way, people who flow tend to perceive time passing faster while they are doing the activity and when they remember it, they perceive it as if it had been longer.
The fact that flowing With what he does he tends to see that what he does is easier than it really is.
5. Be in the present
Ruminative thoughts stop completely and the person concentrates on the activity they are doing.
How to learn to flow?
Everyone can be in one of these states. To learn to flow we can work on the following.
Set clear goals
In Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s book it is explained that it is very likely that flow It occurs when a person faces a task where clear goals are established and require specific actions. In this way, to be able to let everything flow, one of the keys is to write down the clear activities that we must do every day, week and month to reach our goal.
Eliminate distractions
When we have too many distractions around us we cannot reach this state of flow Therefore, you can try to reduce each of these focuses of attention in your environment by moving them away from yourself.
Make it a challenge
He flow It usually occurs when a person’s abilities are completely involved in trying to overcome a challenge that challenges and interests them in equal parts.
Find an activity you really enjoy
For flow We must be involved in a task that we really enjoy. In this way, self-knowledge is essential to be able to enter this state since we need to know what motivates us intrinsically.
Learn to flow It means knowing ourselves and putting aside what others think of us to focus on what really interests us in life. In many cases people do not flow due to fear of what others will think. For this reason, it is essential to work on our self-esteem and security, whether or not through a professional psychologist, to be able to reach this state where everything flows. Happiness ends up being found when we appreciate our interior more than the exterior.
