What’s A “Flow Trigger”?

6. Blending Egos (each person can submerge their ego needs into the group’s)

7. Equal Participation (skills levels are roughly equal everyone is involved)

8. Familiarity (people know one another and understand their tics and tendencie...

The synonyms for flow are endless: peak experiences, being in the zone, runner’s high, being unconscious, the forever box, etc. Flow is something of a technical term. It emerged from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s early research into the state, where interview subjects—in...

The research of Csikszentmihalyi and a few other scientists uncovered 10 core characteristics that underpin the state. While each of these phenomena can be experienced independently, when they all show up together—that’s flow. Or, at least, that’s the original idea. The researche...

Yes. Flow comes in two kinds—individual and group. When someone uses the term “flow” they’re describing an individual performing at their very peak. The term “group flow” refers to the shared, collective experience of the state: a group performing at their peak. For a great look ...

Csikszentmihalyi identified 4 of these triggers (though he argued they’re characteristics of flow and not triggers of flow). Research by the Flow Genome Project shows that when skillfully deployed (see The Rise of Superman for details), these “characteristics” consistently generate more ...

1. Action and Awareness Merge. The doer and the doing become one. From the perspective of consciousness, we become the action. In other words, actions feel automatic and require little or no additional resources.

2. Selflessness. Our sense of self disappear...

Research with both artists and action and adventure sports athletes have fingered four more triggers (see Rise of Superman for a more detailed breakdown).

1. High consequences (that is, some kind of risk: physical, mental, social, emotional, etc.)

2. ...

University of North Carolina psychologist Keith Sawyer extended this original list, identifying ten triggers that produce “group flow.”

1. Shared Goals (everyone in the group is working towards the same end)

2. Close Listening (you’re paying complete ...

7. Intense Concentration. More specifically, intense concentration on a limited field of information. Total focus on the right here, right now. Complete absorption in the present moment.

8. Challenge/Skills Balance. The challenge of the task at hand slightl...

4. Effortlessness. Our sense of struggle and strife vanishes. The experience becomes intrinsically-rewarding or—in technical parlance—“autotelic.”

5. Paradox of Control. We have a powerful sense of control over the situation. We are captain of our own ship;...

Yes. Flow is a spectrum experience. It’s like anger. You can be a little mad or homicidally murderous: same emotion, different degrees. Csikszentmihalyi and Susan Jackson discovered that the same thing is true of flow. You can be in a state of micro-flow—like what happens when yo...

Flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness, a state where you feel your best and perform your best. More specifically, the term refers to those moments of rapt attention and total absorption, when you get so focused on the task at hand ...