FLOW

The optimal experience

 The optimal experience

“ A person can make himself happy or

miserable, regardless of what is actually
happening “outside”, just by changing the
contents of consciousness”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The optimal experience
The optimal experience

content of consciousness
Entering flow depends on Flow
establishing a balance
The optimal experience.
between perceived action
capacities and perceived
action opportunities. Shifts in
subjective state provide
feedback about the changing
relationship to the
environment. Experiencing
anxiety or boredom presses a
person to adjust his or her
level of skill and/ or challenge.

It is the subjective challenges

and subjective skills, not
objective ones, that influence
the quality of a person’s
experience.
 Flow
The optimal experience.
The phenomenon of emergent
motivation means we can The optimal experience
come to experience a new or
previously unengaging activity
as intrinsically motivating if we
find flow in it.
The optimal experience
What constitutes the good life?

- Nothing else matters

- So intense concentration that

there is no attention for anything

else
- Self-consciousness disappears

and time gets distorted

 The optimal experience
What constitutes the good life?

From the perspective of flow, a good life is

characterized by complete absorption in
what one does

Happiness as the process

P E R M A
engagement meaning accomplishment
posi%ve emo%ons posi%ve rela%onships
 The optimal experience

?
Have you ever had the perception
of losing the sense of time?
 Flow
The optimal experience.

Flow research and theory had their origin

in a desire to understand the
phenomenon of intrinsic motivation. It
means to do an activity that is intrinsically
rewarding itself, and not based on the final
results or extrinsic consequences
resulting from the activity.

Conditions:
Perceived challenges or opportunities
at an appropriate level of capacities
Immediate feedback about the process
 Flow
The optimal experience.

Characteristics of the flow state

Intense and focused concentration on

what one is doing in the present moment
Loss of reflective self-consciousness
(loss of awareness of oneself as a social
actor)
A sense that one can control one’s
actions; that is, a sense that one can in
principle deal with the situation because
one knows how to respond to whatever
happens next
 Flow
The optimal experience.

Characteristics of the flow state

Distortion of temporal experience

(typically, a sense that time has passed
faster than normal)
Experience of the activity as intrinsically
rewarding. The end goal is just an
excuse for the process.
 Flow
The optimal experience.

Consequences of flow

According to the flow model,

experiencing flow encourages a
person to persist at and return to an
activity because of the experiential
rewards it promises.

Mastering challenges in daily life may

protect against negative outcomes.
Savoring.
What is it?
 Savoring.
What is it?

“
Savoring involves the deliberate
cultivation of positive experience in the
here an now. Although people are mindful
of their experience during savoring, the
process of savoring is more restrictive as
the person targets internal or external
positive stimuli and maintains that focus.
It tries to prolong the positive.

Savoring is more than pleasure – it also

involves mindfulness and “conscious
attention to the experience of pleasure ”
 Savoring.
What is it?

The lack of savoring/presence affect our

daily activities (for example: spending
time with family or friends, enjoying any
activity…)
 SO..
LET’S
FLOW!