Positive Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote about an intuitive grasp that had not researched in depth before his time: the altered state of consciousness known as “flow” where time dilates, actions feel effortless, our experience is enriched, and life has meaning. 

This is a state where we can unlock our true potential, embed new skills and greatly improve the quality of our lives. A key model in his research is called The Flow Model (depicted below), showing the emotional states that we are likely to experience when trying to complete a task. Depending on the perceived difficulty of the challenge against our skill level. 

To perform at our best, the key to performing tasks within the sweet spot (or flow channel) is to find a challenge that is significant and interesting while feeling confident we have the skillset to tackle that challenge. Whether this is during an activity in sport, business, or art, a level of mastery can be achieved when paying attention to our “challenge-skills balance” so as to consistently increase our skill while meeting challenges of greater intensity. 

Once you practice this to a level of mastery, other traits show up. Flow has many but 8 big ones surfaced in Csikszentmihalyi’s research:
Challenge Skills Balance, Clarity of Goals, Complete Concentration, Time Transformation (Speeding Up / Slowing Down), Action and Awareness Merge, Effortless Effort, Feeling of Complete Control with no rumination, and Autotelic Experience (meaning the experience itself is intrinsically rewarding).