What is ‘flow’ – that is, when the mind transforms talent into performance

The best thing that can happen to you when you’re putting in a great sporting performance is being able to carry on playing; the worst thing is being unable to do so. This depends on what we call ‘flow’ in psychology.

The concept was proposed by Csíkszentmihályi in 1975 and refers to the ‘state of grace’ one experiences when one is so absorbed in an activity that one can no longer distinguish oneself from what one is doing. Entering a state of flow means focusing one’s attention as fully as possible on the task at hand; losing track of time; and deriving satisfaction from the simple act of carrying out that activity. When you’re in the flow, you run for the sake of running, you read for the sake of reading, you write for the sake of writing. Whatever the activity that puts you there.

This state of grace is accompanied by a feeling of having total control over the situation, which is why, in sport, maximising the opportunities to enter and remain in this state can make the difference between a good performance and a great one. But what can be done about it? Let me tell you two short stories.

The first concerns my sport – artistic swimming – which underwent a radical transformation in 2023: from that year onwards, and still today, a large part of the competition is based on whether the ‘difficulty coefficient’ of your routine is higher or lower than that of your opponents. In this sense, the discipline offers an extremely stimulating challenge, but to reap the benefits, one must be prepared to take a few risks – a task that many found difficult in those early years. In fact, numerous teams, overly concerned about the mistakes they might make – and about their opponents’ coefficients – forced themselves to perform routines that were either too simple or too complex, and in doing so denied themselves access to the ‘flow’, to the extent that for many athletes competing became a source of distress, leading many, at all levels, to retire prematurely. This happened because flow does not exist when one is trying to avoid losing, but only when one is trying to do one’s very best, as we shall see shortly.

The second story is more recent and centres on Lando Norris at the Hungarian Grand Prix. After losing the lead, Norris asked his team to let him pass his team-mate Piastri because, he said, he could have been ten seconds faster. Once in the lead, Lando didn’t look back, and kept pushing despite warnings from the team not to overdo it; to watch out for the kerbs; and to focus solely on finishing the race. Norris was probably in the zone; it’s no surprise that his performance turned out to be one of the best of the season.

These two stories help shed some light on what we’re talking about. Entering the flow state, in fact, depends on five fundamental points over which we have more or less direct control: the activity must be intrinsically engaging; that is, we should be willing to do it even in the absence of external rewards (for Lando, running for the sake of speed; for artistic swimmers, performing to create something beautiful); the challenge must be difficult enough to force us to push our abilities to the limit, without being demoralising (Norris would have been bored with ‘merely’ coming first, whilst many swimmers found the excessive difficulty of their routines a source of anxiety); the objectives must be precise and, if possible, measurable (the 10 seconds Piastri had to beat, or performing a routine with a certain degree of difficulty); feedback must be frequent and consistent with the objectives; and distractions must be kept to a minimum. If these conditions are met (challenge, objectives, feedback and the absence of distractions), engaging in an exciting activity could allow us to experience this marvellous state of grace, provided we do not seek it out (thinking about ‘flow’ distracts from the task; the key is: stay focused on what you’re doing).

From what has been said, it is clear that the difference between being in the flow and not being in the flow is the same as that between living and merely surviving. ‘Being careful not to lose’ may offer the relief of not being defeated, but it will never make you cheer and shout ‘Beautiful!’ at the end of a race. Swimming with the handbrake on may protect you from making mistakes, but it doesn’t allow you to be truly immersed in what you’re doing. To enter the flow, you must allow yourself the right to make mistakes, dare to take a more aggressive line, and accept the risk of falling in order to push beyond your limits. This is what flow is: living, not merely surviving. And that is precisely where the incredible begins.