If we're bored, our mind will want to other things. To stay focused we need just the right amount of 'meat' to keep us fully engaged. A slight shift where the task becomes more challenging (or we become more skilled, making the task boring) can shove us out of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Given flow occurs when we are engaging in activities that are at just the right level of challenge, it is a precarious and fragile state. Thoughts, feelings, wishes, and actions are all aligned. This experience, now understood as a flow state, is when we are completely focused, so much so that we might forget to eat or use the bathroom. They would even ignore hunger and overcome fatigue to continue to paint (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). They noticed that when painting was going well for artists, the painters developed a deep focus, persisting in their work. The founding researchers of flow were originally studying creativity. Whether or not a given task is challengingВ for us depends on our areas of expertise, so we may have to do some brainstormingВ and experimenting to find our sweet spot (UllГ©n, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010). So, we might be thoughtful about the difficulty of the tasks we're doing, being sure that they are sufficiently challenging, but not so difficult that we struggle. For example, flow can not occur when we are doing things that are too easy or boring. If we want to get into a flow state, a good first step is to set the scene for the states of mind discussed above. This suggests that positive feelings may help us get into a flow state and that negative emotions such as worry may interfere with a flow state (UllГ©n, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010).Д¬hallenging tasks and flow. We know that a flow state is enjoyable but many of the experiencesВ that emerge as a part of flow can emerge simply from experiencing positive emotions.ДЇor example, a review article reminds us that positive emotions can result in lowered self-consciousness and alterations in the perception of time. It may be that positive emotions precede or are an important precursor to flow. Positive emotion and flow.В An important thing to keep in mind if you desire to enter a flow state is the role of positive emotion. For these reasons, they say that it may be easier to get into flow when working on tasks that we have some expertise in. So researchers suggest that doing a challengingВ activity related to an area where we already have expertise may be qualitatively differentВ than doing a challengingВ activity unrelated to an area of expertise (UllГ©n, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010). When we have expertise in doing an activity, we have already automated some of the difficult parts of that activity. Researchers suggest that we may be more likely to get into flow when working on tasks that we have some expertise in. This suggests that if we work at boosting our intrinsic motivation, we may have an easier time getting into a flow state.Д®xpertise and flow. Boredom coping-or the ability to do boring tasks in ways that are more enjoyable-might also be related to flow (UllГ©n, de Manzano, Theorell, & Harmat, 2010). For example, intrinsic enjoyment-or the tendency to feel enjoyment from doing activities themselves, even if they are not tied to external rewards like money or prestige-may be linked to more frequent experience of flow. S ome personality traits make some of us more likely to enter flow states. We want it, but how do we get it? Here are some suggestions from the research. It's a feeling of being intrinsically motivated or feeling like the task itself was enjoyable, regardless of any goals that the task may be attached to.ДЄ flow state can feel elusive. This experience is thought to be the end result of flow. We may feel like time slows down, allowing us to think clearly, or time speeds up, feeling like it is just flying by. In flow states, time can feel like it's movingВ either faster or slower than usual. We feel and act confidently without a sense of self-consciousness. But in a state of flow, we're not worrying about what others think of us. In daily life, we tend to have thoughts in the back of our minds about how others view us.

When in a state of flow, we feel like we can do anything and that we are in control of what's happening. Our thoughts and actions are well-applied to whatever we're doing. When in flow, we feel totally focused on the activity at hand. Specifically, we recognize that we are succeeding or on the right track. This is the feedback we get from our engagement in whatever task we're doing. This way, we are very clear about what we need to do. Our actions just feel effortless or automatic (Jackson & Marsh, 1996).Д¬lear goals are set from the outset of the flow state or in the process of doing the activity. While in flow, there is no awareness of the self doing the activity.

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