Flow intends to present a qualitative psychological study by Csikszentmihalyi and his team of researchers, during which they conducted thousands of interviews in national, cultural and economic contexts on the subject of happiness, defined as Csikszentmihalyi’s “best experience” sua. Through research, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi began to understand that people are more creative, productive and happy when they are in constant motion. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term “flow state” because many of the people she interviewed described their optimal performance states as when their work simply flowed out of them effortlessly.
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that everything else seems unimportant; the experience is so pleasurable that people will continue to do it, even for a lot of money, just to enjoy it. ” (1990) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi stated that the highest intrinsic motivation is the state of flow, in which a person loses self-awareness, surrenders completely to the moment, and time means nothing (2013). Involvement in life flow occurs only when we have a sense of growth, and this is possible only when the activity challenges us.
It’s not so much an action as it’s a feeling of focus—that is, flow can occur at work or at home—but it’s not yoga and thinking about what you need from the grocery store. Interestingly, the ability to experience flow can vary from person to person. The flow experience is universal and reported to be found in all classes, genders, ages and cultures and can be experienced during many activities. The overall results showed that the experience of flow occurring in a loved place is widely recognized as the result of a series of self-determining actions, regardless of gender or age, and is positively and significantly associated with an individual’s own identity.
On this basis, it is theoretically plausible and important to propose a connection between the experience of flow in localized activity and the experience of the corresponding place identity, that is, the psychological experience of the place where the actions take place. This is also based on flow theory, which holds that certain characteristics of activity experience are important for happiness and well-being. This finding is believed to be valid for four different types of activity and provides strong evidence that flow as an optimal experience persists regardless of country, age, gender, and type of activity (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002; Mao et al., 2016a).
The term flow describes optimal experiences that are among the most pleasurable in human life (Csikszentmihalyi, 1982), and such experiences can occur in any situation or place where activity takes place (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1997), such as when there are clear goals, immediate feedback, and a good balance between human skills and performance objectives. The “flow” state, or optimal experience, a state that is difficult to describe, but which mostly involves measured and precise concentration on an intellectually or physically satisfying task. Explore the happy state of mind called flow, the feeling of being fully involved in a creative or playful activity.
This is not a calm state of non-disturbance, but the exercise of control and exercise with positive results, including a new sense of order in one’s actions and, moreover, a sense of knowing one’s place in the universe. By studying people with very different flow experiences, the author and his research team at the University of Chicago made an ingenious attempt. This is when a person feels that in the course of his life experience there is a strong and steady flow that creates a sense of common purpose and rightness. When everything seems to be in order and all the information that our consciousness processes is in line with our goals, psychic energy flows effortlessly. It is important to note that flow cannot be experienced if distractions interrupt the experience (Nakamura et al., 2009).
The ability to experience flow in almost every direction was available to anyone in any situation. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, considered one of the founders of positive psychology, was the first to define and explore flow. When scientists analyzed the happiness levels of many people, such as artists and athletes, they found that people feel happier when they have an optimal experience. Reaffirm that we can be happier when we face problems; that we often do not realize how dissatisfied we are in our free time or, conversely, how much we get done when we work; that we can enjoy an optimal experience at any job in any case; that we often miss the experience of satisfaction because we don’t know how to identify and use flow opportunities; and a meaningful life can be lived with satisfaction at various levels, with the ability to adjust and redirect goals/actions at any time.