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Happiness, 2.06 (V) Week 2 Video 5 - Characteristics of flow

2.06 (V) Week 2 Video 5 - Characteristics of flow

[MUSIC] Yo. How's it flowing? Good to see you again. In the last video I told you that Professor Czikszentmihalyi has discovered that people were happiest when they were engaged in something that they found meaningful. He referred to these experiences as flow experiences. And as you will soon see, there's a good reason why he chose that particular term to refer to these experiences. Ask yourself, what comes to mind when you think of the word flow? Chances are, you think of a river, which has a quiet strength about it. It knows where its going, and its good at getting around obstacles to get to its destination, but it is also at the same time seemingly not perturbed or disturbed when its confronted with these obstacles. It turns out that in some sense that's exactly how you feel when you experience flow. You have a sort of a quiet sense of control or strength or confidence about you. You have a sense of clarity about what you want to achieve and how you're going to get to achieve it and at the same time you don't feel perturbed or disturbed when you're confronted with obstacles. Professor Csikszentmihalyi identified as many as six characteristics associated with flow experiences, but I'm going to cover only three of the main ones here. The first feature of flow is a distorted perception of time. Often when you're experiencing flow, time seems to slow down. And yet when the flow experience is over it seems that time has passed really fast. Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine that you're playing tennis when you suddenly get into flow. As you prepare to receive the next serve, you're caught in a bit of a time warp. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. You're able to see the ball much more clearly than you normally would. So clearly in fact that you can actually see the fur on the ball standing up as the ball is hurtling towards you. And because time seems to have slowed down, you feel like you have more time on your hands to execute your shots. You find that you're able to reach balls that you normally couldn't. At the same time, although you're moving faster and covering more ground than you normally would, you don't feel overwhelmed or exhausted because your movements are more efficient and effective. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that your movements are not just efficient and effective but they're fluid and artistic, like that of a dancer. In other words, you would feel a little bit like this character Neo from the movie The Matrix, if you've seen it. Time seems to be moving so slowly that you feel like you're capable of dodging bullets and yet, here's the paradoxical bit. When the game is over and your glance at your watch you realize that the game took far longer than you thought it did. You may look at your watch after the game is over and say what? Three hours passed and I even missed my lunch appointment, how did that happen? It seemed like the game just lasted for a few minutes. That's the first feature of flow, a distorted perception of time. The second feature of flow is a lack of self-consciousness. When you are experiencing flow, you will be so absorbed in the activity that you will not have any excess capacity left over to evaluate or judge how you're doing. You know that voice in the back of your head right, that is always judging and evaluating how you're doing saying Raj you're doing really great now, or Raj really screwing up now. That voice would be gone. Why? Because when you're in flow it takes up everything you have so you don't have any excess capacity left over to observe and judge yourself. It is only when the flow activity has ended or some kind of external trigger like the pager going off interrupts the flow that you would step back and say, wow, that was something. I really lost track of time there. This brings me to the third feature of the flow, which is something that actually flows from the other two. The feature has to do with an intense focus on the present moment. Imagine that you're climbing a mountain when you get into flow. Your eventual plan may be to climb to the summit and have a picnic lunch with a friend who's driving up there. But if your in flow you wouldn't be focusing on that end goal. Your attention would be totally devoted to the next step you're about to take. It could be on the next crevice or ledge that you need to hold onto, to hoist yourself up or it could be on the fact that your fingers are damp, or in the presence of prickly shrubs on your path. It wouldn't be on what you plan to do once you reach the summit. So in flow moments your attention will be focused almost entirely on the present moment. The next sub role or sub sub role of what you need to achieve. So to summarize, flow moments are characterized by three important features. Distorted perception of time, a lack of self-consciousness, and an intense focus on the present moment. Now, here's the really interesting this about flow. Even though it sounds so esoteric and almost mystical even, it's an experience that almost every one of us has had. You could be from Kathmandu or Timbuktu. You could be old or young. You could be a male or female. Muslim or Zoroastrian. It really doesn't matter. Everybody seems to have had flow experiences. That's the beauty of flow. But that's not the only thing that's beautiful about flow. It turns out that not only are we all familiar with flow, to some extent at least. There's a way by which we can get into flow almost whenever we want to. How? By understanding what leads to flow. And that's what I want to talk about in the next video. See you. [MUSIC]


2.06 (V) Week 2 Video 5 - Characteristics of flow

[MUSIC] Yo. How's it flowing? Good to see you again. In the last video I told you that Professor Czikszentmihalyi has discovered that people were happiest when they were engaged in something that they found meaningful. He referred to these experiences as flow experiences. And as you will soon see, there's a good reason why he chose that particular term to refer to these experiences. Ask yourself, what comes to mind when you think of the word flow? Chances are, you think of a river, which has a quiet strength about it. It knows where its going, and its good at getting around obstacles to get to its destination, but it is also at the same time seemingly not perturbed or disturbed when its confronted with these obstacles. It turns out that in some sense that's exactly how you feel when you experience flow. You have a sort of a quiet sense of control or strength or confidence about you. You have a sense of clarity about what you want to achieve and how you're going to get to achieve it and at the same time you don't feel perturbed or disturbed when you're confronted with obstacles. Professor Csikszentmihalyi identified as many as six characteristics associated with flow experiences, but I'm going to cover only three of the main ones here. The first feature of flow is a distorted perception of time. Often when you're experiencing flow, time seems to slow down. And yet when the flow experience is over it seems that time has passed really fast. Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine that you're playing tennis when you suddenly get into flow. As you prepare to receive the next serve, you're caught in a bit of a time warp. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. You're able to see the ball much more clearly than you normally would. So clearly in fact that you can actually see the fur on the ball standing up as the ball is hurtling towards you. And because time seems to have slowed down, you feel like you have more time on your hands to execute your shots. You find that you're able to reach balls that you normally couldn't. At the same time, although you're moving faster and covering more ground than you normally would, you don't feel overwhelmed or exhausted because your movements are more efficient and effective. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that your movements are not just efficient and effective but they're fluid and artistic, like that of a dancer. In other words, you would feel a little bit like this character Neo from the movie The Matrix, if you've seen it. Time seems to be moving so slowly that you feel like you're capable of dodging bullets and yet, here's the paradoxical bit. When the game is over and your glance at your watch you realize that the game took far longer than you thought it did. You may look at your watch after the game is over and say what? Three hours passed and I even missed my lunch appointment, how did that happen? It seemed like the game just lasted for a few minutes. That's the first feature of flow, a distorted perception of time. The second feature of flow is a lack of self-consciousness. When you are experiencing flow, you will be so absorbed in the activity that you will not have any excess capacity left over to evaluate or judge how you're doing. You know that voice in the back of your head right, that is always judging and evaluating how you're doing saying Raj you're doing really great now, or Raj really screwing up now. That voice would be gone. Why? Because when you're in flow it takes up everything you have so you don't have any excess capacity left over to observe and judge yourself. It is only when the flow activity has ended or some kind of external trigger like the pager going off interrupts the flow that you would step back and say, wow, that was something. I really lost track of time there. This brings me to the third feature of the flow, which is something that actually flows from the other two. The feature has to do with an intense focus on the present moment. Imagine that you're climbing a mountain when you get into flow. Your eventual plan may be to climb to the summit and have a picnic lunch with a friend who's driving up there. But if your in flow you wouldn't be focusing on that end goal. Your attention would be totally devoted to the next step you're about to take. It could be on the next crevice or ledge that you need to hold onto, to hoist yourself up or it could be on the fact that your fingers are damp, or in the presence of prickly shrubs on your path. It wouldn't be on what you plan to do once you reach the summit. So in flow moments your attention will be focused almost entirely on the present moment. The next sub role or sub sub role of what you need to achieve. So to summarize, flow moments are characterized by three important features. Distorted perception of time, a lack of self-consciousness, and an intense focus on the present moment. Now, here's the really interesting this about flow. Even though it sounds so esoteric and almost mystical even, it's an experience that almost every one of us has had. You could be from Kathmandu or Timbuktu. You could be old or young. You could be a male or female. Muslim or Zoroastrian. It really doesn't matter. Everybody seems to have had flow experiences. That's the beauty of flow. But that's not the only thing that's beautiful about flow. It turns out that not only are we all familiar with flow, to some extent at least. There's a way by which we can get into flow almost whenever we want to. How? By understanding what leads to flow. And that's what I want to talk about in the next video. See you. [MUSIC]