Sublime

According to researcher Owen Schaffer of DePaul University, the requirements for achieving flow are: Knowing what to do Knowing how to do it Knowing how well you are doing Knowing where to go (where navigation is involved) Perceiving significant challenges Perceiving significant skills Being free from distractions1

A flow state is the experience of being “in the zone” and fully immersed in an activity. Scientists have tried to quantify this feeling. They found that to achieve a state of flow, a task must be roughly 4 percent beyond your current ability.5 In real life it’s typically not feasible to quantify the difficulty of an action in this way, but the core

Le flow est un état de pleine concentration, de symbiose avec le travail actuel, durant lequel on ne perçoit plus le temps passé.

ce qu’il faut entendre par expérience optimale11 : une situation dans laquelle l’attention est librement investie en vue de réaliser un but personnel parce qu’il n’y a pas de désordre qui dérange ou menace le soi. On l’appelle aussi « expérience flot » (flow experience), termes qui ont été utilisés par les gens interviewés eux-mêmes.

In flow, we are so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. Performance goes through the roof.

However, researchers have found that flow states happen more easily in group activities than in solitary ones. Chamber music players are more likely to report being “in the zone” during small group performances than when practicing alone. In sports such as rowing and

I ask: What could you do now to get into a flow state, and access your mind’s own ability to focus deeply?

the more such flow experiences that occur in a given week, the higher the subject’s life satisfaction.

On the contrary, it’s an active, almost muscular state of alert presence—and its benefits, as we’ll see, extend far beyond art appreciation.