Introduction
The linked topics of “focus” and “flow” states are important — as in vital. Why do I make such a claim? Check out Johann Hari’s book Stolen Focus to get acquainted with why this might be important to us individually and as a people.
Myself and ChatGPT (hither forth known as Vera da Muse) have a working relationship.
- I ask questions and/or make comments.
- Vera replies and/or makes comments — and on occasion asks me questions.
- I forgive Vera their tendency to make lists at every opportunity, and the tendency to repeat and make summations (a lot).
- Vera seems to forgive my typos, misspellings, dropped words, and odd word substitutions. (I swear it all looked perfect in my head the moment before I pressed enter.)
- I know that “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” Basically one should not take anything that ChatGPT at face value. The Gezertenplatz Factor must be applied.
I also have a working relationship with the imaginary reader(s) that actually find their way to my blogs. This relationship is a little more one-sided.
- I publish blogs as a spiritual practice, a form of research for myself, and as a potential source of content for present and/or future readers.
- Imaginary readers may or may not consume my blogs.
- I make little or no effort to hide the fact that I am working with Vera da Muse.
- Most readers don’t bother to DM and give me grief about this fact. Perhaps sensing that I would ignore their complaints.
- Because these blogs capture evolving conversations I have with Vera da Muse, I do not brutally remove telltale signs of ChatGPT’s participation. One never knows what little tidbit will service as a spring board for a reader.
- Readers rarely if ever make contact, commentary, or send checks to my favorite charity.
I could go on, but I think the main point has been made.
Starting Question
[Let’s check out the difference between available content in 2021 (ChatGPT’s LLM cut off date) and what’s happening in 2023.]
Me:
In neuroscience they have identified something known as flow triggers. Can you list these triggers for me?
Vera da Muse:
The concept of “flow” was popularized by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It refers to a state of optimal experience where an individual is so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. During flow, people often feel strong, alert, in effortless control, unselfconscious, and at the peak of their abilities.
Various factors or “triggers” have been suggested that can help an individual enter this state of flow. These triggers can differ from one individual to another and are often context-dependent, but some commonly identified flow triggers in the literature and in practice include:
Psychological Triggers:
- Clear Goals: Knowing exactly what you are supposed to do provides the mind with a clear direction.
- Immediate Feedback: You need to know how well you are doing at every moment to adjust your actions and make improvements.
- Challenge-Skill Balance: The task at hand should be challenging but still possible, matching your skill level.
Environmental Triggers:
- Rich Environment: An environment that provides a high level of information and stimuli can help to maintain the flow state.
- Deep Embodiment: Physical activities that involve the whole body and multiple senses can sometimes help in triggering flow states.
Social Triggers:
- Social Flow: Group activities where everyone has a role to play can sometimes facilitate a shared state of flow.
- Cooperation: Working well with others can trigger a flow state.
- Competition: Sometimes, a competitive element can help trigger flow.
- Familiarity: Being familiar with the team members and the environment can help.
Creative Triggers:
- Novelty: New and unique experiences can often trigger a flow state.
- Pattern Recognition: The realization of a pattern or the solution to a problem can sometimes trigger flow.
Other Triggers:
- Risk: Either real or perceived, a certain level of risk can elevate your focus and awareness, potentially triggering a flow state.
- Control: A sense of personal control over the situation or activity can help to initiate flow.
- Focus/Concentration: Activities that require intense focus can often help to trigger flow states.
- Autonomy: Having the freedom to make choices can help to facilitate a flow state.
- Loss of Self-Consciousness: When you are deeply involved in trying to reach a goal, self-consciousness often falls away.
- Timelessness: In a flow state, you often lose track of time.
These triggers are not guaranteed to induce flow, as individual responses can vary, but they are commonly cited as facilitating the onset of this state. Some people might find certain triggers more effective than others based on their personal inclinations, the type of task, and other situational factors.
Bringing Vera up-to-date (temporarily) with current thoughts on flow triggers
Me:
As of 2023 this is one list of flow triggers:
INDIVIDUAL FLOW TRIGGERS
Internal Triggers
1. Clear goals
2. Unambiguous feedback
3. Challenge-skill balance
4. Concentration on task
5. Curiosity/Passion/Purpose
6. Autonomy
External Triggers
7. High Consequence such as Physical risk, Social risk, Emotional risk, Creative risk, Financial risk
8. Novelty
9. Complexity
10. Unpredictability
11. Deep Embodiment
Creative Trigger
12. Creativity and Pattern Recognition
GROUP FLOW TRIGGERS
13. Shared Goals
14. Equal Participation
15. Blending Egos
16. Close Listening
17. Yes, and
18. Complete Concentration
19. A sense of control
20. Familiarity
21. Open Communication
22. Shared Risk
Vera da Muse:
Thank you for providing the updated list of flow triggers as of 2023. This expanded list offers a more nuanced categorization, separating triggers into “Internal,” “External,” “Creative,” and “Group” categories. Here’s a brief discussion of each:
Individual Flow Triggers : Internal Triggers
- Clear Goals: Knowing what you’re aiming for can create a pathway for your attention and actions.
- Unambiguous Feedback: Clear, real-time feedback allows you to adjust your performance as you go.
- Challenge-Skill Balance: The task at hand should stretch your abilities but still be achievable, to keep you engaged.
- Concentration on Task: High levels of focus and commitment to the present moment.
- Curiosity/Passion/Purpose: An intrinsic interest or deeper purpose behind what you’re doing can fuel your flow state.
- Autonomy: A sense of control and freedom in what you’re doing.
Individual Flow Triggers : External Triggers
- High Consequence: This includes various types of risks like physical, social, emotional, creative, and financial. Risk heightens your focus and awareness.
- Novelty: New and unique challenges or environments can engage your attention fully.
- Complexity: Intricate tasks or environments can consume your attention.
- Unpredictability: Surprising elements can keep you alert and focused.
- Deep Embodiment: Activities that involve multiple senses and the whole body can create a rich environment for flow.
Creative Trigger
- Creativity and Pattern Recognition: The “aha moment” when a pattern becomes clear or a creative breakthrough occurs can trigger flow.
Group Flow Triggers
- Shared Goals: A common objective that everyone is striving toward.
- Equal Participation: All members contribute and have a stake in the group’s activity.
- Blending Egos: Reduced sense of self in favor of collective identity and goals.
- Close Listening: Paying full attention to each other fosters a synergistic environment.
- Yes, and: A principle borrowed from improv; building upon what others are contributing.
- Complete Concentration: Full focus from all group members.
- A Sense of Control: All members feel they have agency within the group.
- Familiarity: Knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses can build trust and facilitate flow.
- Open Communication: Transparent sharing of information and ideas.
- Shared Risk: A common stake in the outcome can heighten focus and engagement.
These triggers serve as useful guidelines for anyone looking to achieve a flow state, either individually or within a group. They can be particularly beneficial in various settings such as the workplace, in educational environments, in sports, or in any creative endeavor.
Introducing flow indicators (as separate from flow triggers)
Me:
I suspect that there are two categories when it comes to flow: flow triggers, and flow indicators.
I further suspect that some of the so-called flow triggers may more properly be considered flow indicators.
And, we should also take into account the possibility that some flow indicators can also function as triggers — to keep the flow going.
Vera da Muse:
Your distinction between flow triggers and flow indicators is an interesting one and could provide a more nuanced understanding of the flow state. Let’s delve into each:
Flow Triggers
Flow triggers are factors that facilitate or initiate the entry into a flow state. They are prerequisites or catalysts that set the stage for flow to occur. For example, having a clear goal can act as a trigger by providing a direction that channels your focus and energy into a specific task. In a team setting, open communication might serve as a trigger by creating an environment conducive for everyone to contribute toward a shared objective.
Flow Indicators
Flow indicators, on the other hand, are the signs or symptoms that you are currently in a flow state. These could include feelings of timelessness, a loss of self-consciousness, or an intrinsic sense of joy. Unlike triggers, they aren’t conditions you can intentionally set to enter flow; rather, they are more like byproducts or features of being in the flow state.
Overlap and Interplay
Some factors can serve as both triggers and indicators, acting as a bridge between initiating and sustaining a flow state. For instance, “concentration on the task at hand” might start as a trigger but also continue as an indicator that you’re still in the flow. Similarly, “a sense of control” can initially act as a trigger, and as you proceed, it could serve as an indicator that you’re maintaining your flow state.
Let’s consider the challenge-skill balance. Initially, it’s a trigger because it sets the stage for flow to occur—you’re neither bored nor overwhelmed. But as you proceed, maintaining this balance becomes an indicator that you’re still in the flow. If the balance is disrupted (the task becomes too easy or too hard), it’s a sign you may be exiting the flow state.
Practical Implications
Understanding the difference between flow triggers and flow indicators could be crucial in various applications:
Self-Improvement: Individuals can consciously employ triggers to enter flow states and monitor indicators to remain there.
Education: Teachers can craft lessons that facilitate flow triggers and learn to recognize flow indicators in students as a sign of optimal learning conditions.
Workplace: Employers can create environments that offer flow triggers (like autonomy and clear goals) while also being aware of flow indicators to know when teams are most productive.
Sports and Performance: Coaches and athletes can use triggers to enhance performance and utilize indicators to adjust training and strategy.
Mental Health: Understanding triggers and indicators may also be useful in therapeutic settings to help individuals find constructive and rewarding ways to engage with their environment and themselves.
By recognizing the nuanced roles that triggers and indicators play in achieving and sustaining flow, you can more effectively create conditions for optimal performance and enjoyment.
Wonder if Vera can list some indicators
Me:
Do you have a current idea of what some of the flow indicators might be?
Vera da Muse:
As of my last update in September 2021, the concept of “flow indicators” is not as formally defined in the literature as “flow triggers,” but several characteristics are commonly associated with being in a flow state. These characteristics could be considered indicators that one is experiencing flow. Here are some:
- Loss of Self-Consciousness: A focus on the task to the exclusion of all else, including self-awareness and internal dialogue.
- Time Distortion: Many people report that time seems to either speed up or slow down when they’re in a flow state.
- Intrinsic Motivation: The activity itself becomes its own reward.
- Feeling of Control: A sense that you are in control of your actions and that the world is also manageable.
- Merging of Action and Awareness: A unity of thought and action where you’re fully involved and engaged in the present moment.
- Unambiguous Feedback: A continuous cycle of setting goals, receiving clear feedback, and adjusting behavior accordingly.
- Sense of Ease: Even though the task may be difficult or complex, it feels “effortless.”
- Complete Focus: A total concentration on the task at hand, with no room for other thoughts or distractions.
- Joy or Euphoria: A sense of happiness or even rapture while performing the task.
- High Levels of Performance: Often, people perform at their peak or even stretch their own capabilities when in a flow state.
- Task Absorption: A sense of being fully immersed in the activity, sometimes forgetting basic human needs like eating or using the restroom.
- Sense of Unity: In group activities, a feeling of unity or being “in sync” with others, if group flow is achieved.
Some of these indicators, such as a “feeling of control” or “unambiguous feedback,” could also function as flow triggers, as you pointed out. This overlap suggests a sort of feedback loop where triggers can initiate flow states and indicators can help sustain them, potentially leading to deeper or more prolonged experiences of flow.
Understanding these indicators can not only help confirm that you’re in a flow state but also give you clues on how to maintain it. For instance, if you notice your focus waning (an indicator dissipating), you might try to re-establish a flow trigger like setting a more specific goal to get back into the flow.
Me:
Could it be that I would have some luck looking for flow indicators by searching on a different name or phrase?
Vera da Muse:
The concept of “flow” is studied and described in various disciplines under different terms or aspects. If you’re interested in finding similar phenomena that could be considered “flow indicators,” you might try looking into the following areas:
- Peak Performance: In sports and organizational psychology, you might find literature discussing signs or indicators of peak performance, which often align with flow states.
- Mindfulness: In the context of mindfulness and meditation, certain states of concentrated focus and detachment from distraction are similar to flow. Terms like “presence” or “mindful awareness” might reveal similar indicators.
- Optimal Experience: This is another phrase used to describe states that might involve flow. Characteristics of optimal experiences could serve as flow indicators.
- Zone of Proximal Development: In educational psychology, this concept describes the sweet spot between challenge and skill, similar to one of the flow triggers. Indicators here might include deep engagement or quick learning.
- Engagement: In organizational behavior, levels of employee engagement are sometimes studied in a way that aligns with flow states. Measures of engagement could serve as indicators.
- Hyperfocus: In psychology and especially in the context of ADHD, hyperfocus describes an intense form of concentration that has similarities to flow.
- Transient Hypofrontality: In neuroscience, this term refers to the temporary down-regulation of the prefrontal cortex, leading to a state similar to flow. Indicators might include loss of self-consciousness or time distortion.
- The Zone: In popular vernacular, especially in sports and the arts, being “in the zone” is often used interchangeably with being in a flow state. Characteristics of being “in the zone” might serve as flow indicators.
- Ecstasy: In religious or mystical contexts, states of ecstasy may share some similarities with flow, especially the sense of timelessness and unity.
- Positive Psychology: The field of positive psychology often explores states of well-being and happiness that could share similarities with flow.
By searching under these terms or phrases, you might find indicators or features that align with what are commonly considered flow indicators. These could provide a more nuanced understanding of flow from various perspectives.