During the last twenty-five years of her life, the English novelist Virginia Woolf kept a diary of her most honest, vulnerable thoughts.

She wrote about her struggle with depression, despair, and concern over how others would react to her books. But she also experienced moments of incredible excitement and enthusiasm, most of all whenever she came up with a new idea or worked on a new book. 

In a 1929 entry, she wrote:

“…Once the mind gets hot it can’t stop: I walk making up phrases; sit, contriving scenes; am in short in the thick of the greatest rapture known to me.” ¹

Woolf was not the first person – be it artist, athlete, or scientist – to describe such a phenomenon. Over the ages, many people have experienced being caught up in the rush of solving a problem, doing something meaningful, and temporarily transcending their everyday anxieties. But it wasn’t until a Hungarian-American graduate student named Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi arrived on the scene that we were finally able to give a name to it: “flow.”

In the 1960s, Csikszentmihalyi was grappling with an age-old question: what makes people truly happy? He himself had experienced serious hardships from childhood: one of his half-brothers was killed in a siege in World War II, and the other was sent to a communist prison camp for decades before finally being reunited with the family.

What Csikszentmihalyi discovered is that our happiness has very little to do with what happens to us, and everything to do with what happens inside of us. In other words, how we order our minds while focusing on a task, activity, challenge, or everyday scenario is what makes us truly happy.  To hell with making seven figures or living in the Hamptons. 

What’s even more remarkable is that flow – or optimal experience, as it’s also called – is something available to any of us if we choose to tap into it. Health, age, social status, and money are in no way barriers to achieving it. ²

In fact, some of the most notable examples Csikszentmihalyi came across in his years of studies were not famous artists, scholars, or intellectuals, but everyday people whose lives looked mundane or even difficult from the outside. In his most famous book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he describes Navajo shepherds, assembly line workers in Chicago, and little old ladies from Alpine Italy who all derive an incredible enjoyment and sense of purpose from the work they do each day. 

This is wonderful news for anyone who is looking to experience more happiness in life, but it also raises an important question: if this formula for happiness is available to all of us, why aren’t we all taking advantage of it?

The answer is that flow, by necessity, isn’t easy. A key aspect of it requires us to exercise our minds (and sometimes our bodies) every single day.

An Antidote to Boredom and Anxiety

Boredom and anxiety are two of the most ubiquitous mental states we all must contend with. Depending on where our thoughts lead, we might at any time be in either a state of low-level panic trying to just get through the day or one of apathy wondering, “Is this all there is to life?”

The natural way for most of us to deal with these emotions is to relax or “unplug” as soon as we get the chance by either watching TV, scrolling through our phones, or doing something else that requires relatively little brainpower. There’s a time and a place for this, but if we make this our everyday modus operandi we will experience little growth and meaning. Nor do we experience any real sense of control.

When we challenge ourselves at any given task, we wield a double-edged sword that hacks away at anxiety and boredom at the same time

Flow, on the other hand, is an alternative way to avoid the entropic states of anxiety and boredom — a super highway to elevated thinking. According to Csikszentmihalyi:

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen.”

When we challenge ourselves at any given task, we wield a double-edged sword that hacks away at anxiety and boredom at the same time: by increasing our skill at something, we reduce anxiety, and by being engaged, we reduce boredom. 

In the process of creating flow for ourselves, we can’t help but step outside of time and other distracting concerns – we are no longer anxious because we’re not thinking about the future or anything else outside of that very moment. Because we are in that sweet spot of being challenged but not overwhelmed, we experience growth and newfound confidence.

It’s what athletes and other professionals like Kobe Bryant experience each time they show up to perform:

“When you get in that zone, it’s just a supreme confidence that you know it’s going in. It’s not a matter of if – it’s going in. Things just slow down. You just have supreme confidence. But when that happens, you really do not try to focus on what’s going on, because you could lose it in a second. You have to really try to stay in the present, not let anything break that rhythm.” ³

Bryant may be a more dramatic example of flow in that his skills are far more advanced than the average person could ever hope to achieve. But skills and even confidence are a by-product of something far more important: being in control of our thoughts, and ultimately, our lives.

It’s easy to dismiss flow as something associated only with celebrities and professional experts, but it’s a very flexible phenomenon. With some effort, we can each achieve our own optimal experience, based on our own lifestyles.

How to Cultivate Flow In Your Own Life

The concept of flow has been somewhat bastardized these days by many online voices who, usually with good intentions, are looking for creative ways to help other people be more productive.

Flow, however, should not be equated with “doing a good job” at something. It’s not simply a routine or a ritual. You can’t turn flow on and off like a light switch whenever you want to write a bestselling book or viral social media post.

Flow happens when we bring order to our minds, stay present in each moment, and find little ways to continuously improve day after day. When we do this, we are more likely to achieve optimal experience in every aspect of our lives – from work to hobbies, to relationships.

It’s true that there have been plenty of dysfunctional people whose personal lives were a complete wreck, but who still experienced flow in their careers. However, that needn’t be the case for us. We can be in a state of flow whether we’re practicing the cello, trying to solve a mathematical formula, washing the dishes, or talking to an old friend whom we haven’t seen in a long time.

How do you cultivate flow in your own life, then?

Csikszentmihalyi does not give us a clinical prescription because flow will vary with each person and each scenario. An NBA basketball player learning to perfect his jump shot, a young mother teaching her child to read, and a prisoner of war will all find different methods adapted to their situation and what they are trying to accomplish.

The NBA player, for example, may measure his performance each day and relish the opportunity he has to improve further, while the young mother doesn’t necessarily track metrics but instead finds herself completely absorbed in her child’s progress as she blocks out all distractions. The prisoner of war may find any number of ways to keep his spirits up by memorizing poetry he’s written in his mind, or by focusing on the beautiful view outside his cell window.

Flow is much less about being talented or special, and much more about being present and intentional. It means being creative in your everyday life by finding ways to challenge yourself to either solve a new problem or do a better job at something you already do. It requires humility, curiosity, persistence, and a sense of wonder.

“People who learn to control inner experience,” Csikszentmihalyi tells us, “Will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.” Controlling our inner experience is no easy task, but luckily we have the rest of our lives to practice and perfect it.

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1. Woolf, V. (2003). A Writer’s Diary. Mariner Books.
2. The one caveat here is that some people are more easily able to cultivate flow than others, and this may go back to childhood experience or even genetics. However, the principles are still available for anyone who wishes to practice them.
3. Lazenby, R. (2016). Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant. Little, Brown and Company.