Jamie Shim

Jamie Shim

Have you ever been so focused on a game that you forgot how tired or hungry you were? Or maybe you have been so absorbed in a good book or an exciting challenge that hours felt like mere minutes. Leading positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi describes these highly focused state of consciousness as the experience of flow, in which a person becomes intensely and fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and often, the intrinsic reward of success. Csikszentmihalyi particularly emphasized the importance of flow in creative endeavors because of the positive and productive contributions that are made as a result. But what does flow have anything to do with creativity? It turns out that flow is an important factor for enhancing creativity in more ways than one. By first defining the psychological construct of flow, articulating how, why, and when flow occurs, and then reviewing how psychologists have defined and investigated creativity, we can begin to see how these two topics relate. The experience of flow can enhance creativity through its inherently fulfilling experience, through the motivation it provides in the challenging stages that lead up to influential discoveries, and through the way it optimizes the way we think and process ideas. Once we better understand the importance of the complex relationship between flow and creativity we can hope to understand how to utilize flow in both the service of creativity and to foster a more fulfilling life.