“The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csikszentimihalyi, 1996)
Today I will be blogging in reference to this week’s reading, another by Csikszentimihalyi, discussing creativity as having a sense of “flow” and how experiencing flow expands one’s ability to be creative. According to Csikszentimihalyi, in the chapter “The Flow of Creativity”, there are 9 aspects that he believes are associated with flow.
1. There are clear goals every step of the way. Goals assist in motivating you to expand and complete your work so you are able to feel that greater sense of achievement when you have completed a task. Providing yourself with a list of goals also means that you are more prepared, and therefore stress-free, you have made a plan for yourself and are confident of what you are doing.
2. Immediate feedback to one’s actions. Participating in any activity where you are comfortable and you know the rules, what is and isn’t acceptable, results in the immediate realisation of what you have done incorrectly or perfectly. For example, as a netball player, it is important to know the rules of the sport to be able to play and win the game fairly. The immediate feedback in this case is that if you break the rules, you lose. Also, the umpires are there to blow the whistle the second you break the rules, contact for example, and the spectators applaud when you do something right. This immediate feedback provides a sense of flow, you know that if you do something wrong it might cost you time and effort.
3. Balance between challenges and skills. If a challenge isn’t challenging enough, you become bored. If a challenge is too challenging, you instantly become stressed. Therefore, the whole concept of flow and enjoyment disappears. I have provided you with a chart below, by Csikszentmihalyi, which indicates that to maintain flow there must be that balance between the challenges you face and the skills you have to complete the challenge, otherwise you are left unsatisfied.
"Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. retrieved from: http://lateralaction.com/articles/mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/
4. Action and awareness are merged. Your concentration is focused only on what you do, preventing your mind from wandering off and losing track. You become accustomed to your level of work and, soon enough, it becomes a natural habit and not an effort.
5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness. It is important we understand that to be experiencing flow, the level of concentration and focus on the “now” is fundamental, and needs to be, as Csikszentmihalyi mentions, at an “intense concentration” level. Becoming distracted from your work and what you’re supposed to be doing interrupts the “flow” process and can result badly. For example, a taxi driver needs to be intensely focused on the road to be able to do his job, and keep his passengers safe. A slight distraction on the road can lead to disaster, because you lose concentration. Driving, even though you may not be a taxi driver, is a repetitive activity in almost everybody’s everyday life and you must maintain the ability to concentrate on everything that is happening right then and there to prevent accidents from occurring. Watch this advertisement on driving as it demonstrates the importance of concentration.
In terms of creativity, I believe this advert achieves what every “drive safe” ad campaign aims for. The ability to create a gruesome and graphic ad, denoting nothing but the truth of what can cause the most horrific accidents, whilst positioning the audience to feel the exact emotions they were hoping for is what intrigues me most. The “PAY ATTENTION or pay the price” slogan they used says it all, and relates mostly to this aspect indicating that if you aren’t concentrating, it will affect the result. I felt nothing but pain whilst watching this video, the use of music and the footage shown practically forces you to experience this terrorising act of idiocy and opens your eyes to the dangers that exist on our roads.
6. No worry or failure. We don’t stress or worry that there’s a possibility of failure. I believe it’s because we don’t even allow ourselves the time to consider those possibilities, we are too focused on reaching our clear goals and our skills are capable of meeting the challenges that the worries aren’t necessary.
7. Self Consciousness disappears. Again, the intense concentration we have allows us to eliminate all those fears we usually or previously would’ve had to face when you are not in the concentration zone. We become unaware of how we portray ourselves to others. An example of this could be when you’re talking to somebody over the internet, and YES we all do it, and you suddenly get that huge grin on your face from what the other person has said, but you’re enjoying the conversation too much to realise that others might be judging you.
Super Stock, by Belinda Images. Retrieved from: http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4107-75258
8. The sense of time becomes distorted. Have you ever heard of the expression, “Time flies when you’re having fun”? Yes? Have you just wanted time to fly so fast that you keep looking at the clock but it’s only been five minutes since you last looked at it? When you’re in that mood of enjoyment, like a recess or lunch break at school, you’re not concerned about what time it is, you’re focused on getting your work completed/ enjoying yourself that time goes extremely fast. Although, if you’re in a state where you aren’t enjoying yourself, you will often constantly check the clock to count how much longer you have to suffer and then, all of a sudden, time goes slower. Just like watching an amazing movie compared to a terrible movie. You don’t want the amazing movie to end but it ends faster than expected, whereas throughout the terrible movie you’re asking yourself, “when will this end?” and because it isn’t something you enjoy you feel like you have been in the cinema for much longer than the usual hour and a half.
I don’t even hate to admit that I could watch the movie Tangled countless times purely because I enjoy every second of it and then I hate when it ends so quickly. Scary Movie, on the other hand, I didn’t enjoy and I felt like I was sitting through that movie for 3 hours instead of 1.5-2 hours.
9. Activity becomes autotelic. The reason we do what we do is because it provides us with a great experience that we enjoy. A surgeon doesn’t become a surgeon and stay a surgeon because he/she liked watching Grey’s Anatomy or ER growing up. They do what they need to do because they love it and they go to University and work their backsides off for 4 or so years because they know that at the end of it, saving people’s lives, finding cures and cutting people open is the ultimate experience for them and they wouldn’t rather do anything else everyday.
So folks, there you have it, a list of the 9 aspects associated with flow according to Csikszentmihalyi and a few examples I have provided to support of them.
REFERENCES
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). The Flow of Creativity. Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention (pp. 107-126). New York: HarperCollins.
“Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. retrieved from: http://lateralaction.com/articles/mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi/
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSx1dYJlJh4
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8QxZJZfU5Q&feature=related
Super Stock, by Belinda Images. Retrieved from: http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/4107-75258
world of pure imagination 