During the 1992 NBA Championship finals, Michael Jordan hit six 3-pointers in 18 minutes then turned to the crowd with an iconic shrug. Later, he said he was so “in the zone” he literally didn’t know how he did it.
He was talking about, of course, that thrilling feeling of flow. A term coined by the late positive psychology expert Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, flow is the state of being hyper-focused, fully absorbed and energized by the task at hand.
“Flow is the feeling of being immersed and engaged in what you're doing, and we care about it because people tend to perform best and feel their best when they're in a flow state,” says David Melnikoff, a psychologist who researches the nature of motivation.
Indeed, research has shown that finding oneself in a state of flow enhances productivity, learning and academic achievement, and overall well-being. “But we don't really know much ...
