Monday Moment - Seeking 'Flow'

Last week I taught the concept of ‘Flow’ to my child-care students, and it’s been on my mind ever since. The concept of Flow was developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as part of his study of happiness, creativity, fun, and other lovely emotions that it must have been fabulous to study.

Essentially, Mihaly (I need to be on a first-name basis with this man for a very practical reason. I can’t pronounce his last name!) says that flow is that nirvana feeling we sometimes get when our skills match up with a challenge that we need to face. We get lost in whatever we’re doing, forget to eat, forget to sleep, and become totally absorbed in the task at hand. Flow is a kind of mindfulness, a full involvement – body, mind, spirit – with the challenge.

We talk about flow in my classes so my students will develop activities that are not too difficult for kids so the kids will feel frustrated and want to quit nor too easy so kids will become bored and want to create their own – often troublesome – fun. Challenges need to match skills for children to be engaged in the challenge and have the chance to achieve flow – and generally behave in ways that adults find appealing. We talk about matching challenge and ability also in terms of safety. Challenges that are too risky for a child’s skills are dangerous. Challenges that are too easy may entice kids to take unsafe risks for the sake of relieving their boredom. The challenge for after-school staff of course, is that each child has a different set of abilities and activities need to be constructed so each child can find that ‘just-right’ balance of ability and challenge.

So I’ve been thinking about flow in my own life. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how I can get more of it! Because I like those moments of flow – those times when I am 100% engaged, when doing what I’m doing seems like the very most important thing I could possibly be doing.

As I’ve been thinking of those fully-alive moments of flow I’ve experienced, I realize that the particular balance of challenge and ability that works best for me is when I almost have the skills I need to face a challenge that I want and choose to face.

I suspect that Mihaly and I are on the same page with this notion since he also talks about continually upping the challenge and pushing the boundaries of our comfort zones. As my friend and mentor Sid Simon says, “up the risk!’ The experience of growing – and being able to see that growth right in front of my eyes – that’s surely part of any peak experience.

Mihaly also talks about clarity – being clear about what it is you want to do. I remember a work situation where an abundance of challenges awaited me, but they were no longer challenges that excited my passion and energy. I wanted new, different, other challenges instead.

Without question, the quest for flow is behind my commitment to goal-setting. When I set a goal, I choose the challenge and I stretch my abilities. I never mind too much if I don’t achieve 100% of my goal – when I know that I stretched and came closer than I would have without the goal. My current abilities – or drive – aren’t quite a match for the ambitious goals that I set. And yet, I grow, I am conscious of growing, and in the process, I often feel a sense of flow.

I’m reminded of a story that Jack Canfield tells about the year he set a goal to earn $100,000 when he’d previously ever earned only $18,000. He didn’t make his goal that year. But he wasn’t at all unhappy with the $96,000 he did earn. And I’ll bet he felt some flow as he sought to meet his goal!

What challenges bring out the flow in you? How can you up the risk to get more flow in your life – this very week?

Sally