5 Conditions To Activate Flow State

The secret behind high-performing people.

Photo by Andrew Ly on Unsplash

Newton while writing Principia Mathematica regularly forgot to eat and sleep for days. It’s not the sacrifice of food and sleep that made him great. It’s the activated flow that caused it.

Flow is a state of enhanced performance and intense focus. It’s a concept of positive psychology, regularly seen in high-performing people.

How can normal people like you and I achieve flow?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied people who regularly experienced flow. In his book, he mentions some conditions that if met, will get you in that state.

Here are the 5-conditions to activate your flow-state:

1. Intrinsic Reward: doing what matters to you.

If an activity is meaningless to you, you can’t tap into flow. You can’t tap into flow in a boring job or while studying something doesn’t interest you.

The crucial requirement for flow is to pick an activity that’s meaningful to you. You can know your meaningful activity by knowing where your interests and strengths lie.

For example; If your strength is being creative and you are interested in graphic-design, pick that. If your strength is extroversion and…