How long have you felt satisfaction at work from the process? Not from receiving a salary or communicating with colleagues, but from activities. This is a state when everything around disappears: time, hunger, fatigue, even self-awareness. All that remains is a feeling of incredible joy, many people describe it as ecstasy. In the scientific environment, this state is called flow.
A Forbes study found that 80% of employees are dissatisfied with their jobs.
Each of us has experienced the flow state and can experience it whenever we want. It gives us a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. But let's go in order.
What is flow state?
In 1946, Viktor Frankl, a psychologist, psychiatrist and former prisoner of concentration camps, put forward the theory that only meaning in life gives a person a sense of fulfillment and a full life.
He said that people cannot be happy if they do not have meaning in life. By content, he meant any kind of activity that benefits a person and society. He argued that even in the harshest conditions he had to face in the concentration camps, one could find meaning. He found it in providing psychological help to other prisoners who were losing hope. I wrote more about his book and his theory in the article "The only thing that no one can ever take away from you."
Another psychologist Mihai Csikszentmihalyi decided to test Frankl's theory. In his most famous study, Csikszentmihalyi tried to find out when people are happiest and how important it is to be active for happiness. I suggest you watch the video report from the first hand, where he talks about his research and the discoveries he made.
The state of flow is the same spark that ignites people, makes them work tirelessly, without feeling hungry and tired, without noticing time. Many people have said they felt as if their flow had picked up, hence the name of the condition.
Many associate this state with the arrival of the muse and attribute this state only to creative people: artists, writers, designers. But the flow state is available to everyone. If you search your memory, you will definitely remember some activity that overwhelmed you so much that the time flew by imperceptibly and after it was done you felt incredible joy and energy.
Another good news is that the state of the stream does not need to wait, as writers waited for the muse, it can be created. Read more about this in the article "How to choose a job that will not bore you".
Two conditions are necessary to enter the flow state
1. A case that interests you. Unfortunately, for many it is not so simple. You can start with a hobby or interest from childhood.
2. A small but continuous increase in skill level. In order to constantly achieve the flow, constant development in the case is necessary. If you like to knit, then learn to knit more complex things, then more complex patterns, then develop speed and so on. Constantly make the task more difficult for yourself.
Boredom and anxiety interfere with the flow
1. Boredom. That is why even a favorite thing gets boring later. Constant growth is necessary to experience flow.
2. A feeling of anxiety. If a beginner runner immediately decides to break the world record, then, most likely, he will not succeed, and this will upset him and discourage him from continuing training.
It's important to find the middle ground between anxiety and boredom, somewhere between these two feelings is an incredible state of flow.
Finally
Mihai Csikszentmihalyi made an incredible discovery.
1. Happiness is in activity, and not in idleness.
2. Without a state of flow, we are unhappy. The cause of dissatisfaction, depression, apathy is caused by the lack of a state of flow in life. People often get retirement depression when they stop working.
And if the cause of dissatisfaction is known, it can be changed and make yourself happy. This requires finding an activity in which you experience a state of flow.
- Mriya.run: Space for Conscious Change. Learning, Practice & Tools
- Tools & Resources
- A state of flow is a necessary condition for doing what you love