The Origins of Flow: How Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Discovered “Optimal Experience” and Changed the Way We Think About Happiness, Performance, and Creativity

This article is a (slightly adapted) excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow.

"[W]hen people enjoy most what they are doing—from playing music to playing chess, from reading good books to having a good conversation, from working their best to trying to beat their own record in sport—they report a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems. We have called this the ‘flow experience,’ because so many of the persons describing it used the analogy of being effortlessly carried by a current—of being in a flow." —MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

Human beings have probably been experiencing flow for tens of thousands of years. When our ancestors hunted megafauna, danced around the fire, sang songs, or engaged in ceremonies—I strongly suspect they were in flow. However, while the experience has existed for a long time, the scientific investigation into it is relatively new. The term flow has only been around for approximately 50 years. In this article, we’ll discuss the origin story of flow. We’ll see who came up with the term, and why.

So, where did flow originate? The term was coined in the 1970s by Hungarian-American researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It made its first appearance in the literature in Csikszentmihalyi’s book Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play. [1] The 1975 book details the beginnings of flow research and presents the first version of flow theory.

The concept of flow is very much the brain child of Csikszentmihalyi. He did all of the initial research, coined the term, came up with the original theory, and then continued to study the concept and update the theory for more than 40 years until his death in 2021. He published hundreds of scientific papers and multiple books on the subject, including his 1990 bestseller Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. [2] For all these reasons, he’s rightfully known as the “father of flow.”

Csikszentmihalyi started his research career in the 1960s by studying creativity. He made two observations when studying the creative process of painters. First, he noticed that the painters sometimes entered a “trancelike state” when the work was going well: “Once the painting started to take shape, the artist became completely enthralled. The motivation to go on painting was so intense that fatigue, hunger, or discomfort ceased to matter.” [3]

Second, he noticed that the painters weren’t very interested in the end result or potential rewards of their paintings. Instead, they were much more interested in the process of painting itself: “[I] noticed that the artists I was observing almost immediately lost interest in the canvas they had just painted. Typically they turned the finished canvas around and stacked it against a wall. Nor were they particularly eager to show it off, or very hopeful about selling it. They could hardly wait to start on a new one.” [4] At first, the behavior seemed strange to Csikszentmihalyi. However, upon reflection, he realized it wasn’t unusual at all: “After all, there were hundreds of activities that people did simply for the sake of doing the activity, without expecting any external rewards for it.” [5]

Csikszentmihalyi realized that the painters were primarily intrinsically, rather than extrinsically motivated. They pursued painting primarily for the sake of it rather than for extrinsic rewards like money, prestige, power, or admiration. When an activity is primarily pursued for the sake of it, it’s said to be intrinsically motivated. When an activity is primarily pursued for money, prestige, power, or admiration, it’s said to be extrinsically motivated. Flow research originated in Csikszentmihalyi’s desire to understand the former.

To investigate the nature of intrinsically motivated activity, Csikszentmihalyi and his research team interviewed rock climbers, chess and basketball players, dancers, and composers of music. The interviewees had in common that they seemed to be doing what they were doing for the sake of it rather than for extrinsic rewards—they were intrinsically motivated. In the words of Csikszentmihalyi: “All groups studied had one thing in common: they consisted of people who devote much energy to some activity which yields minimal rewards of a conventional sort.” [6]

Csikszentmihalyi started with a simple question: Why do you spend so much of your life doing something for which you don’t expect either fame or fortune? In hindsight, the answers were rather obvious. The interviewees devoted time to climbing rocks, playing chess, or dancing—even when no external rewards could be gained—because the activities were rewarding in themselves. The activities provided highly enjoyable and deeply satisfying experiences. It was the quality of these experiences that made up for the lack of external rewards. The doing was reward enough. The act justified itself; composing music was not a means to an end but an end in itself.

Not exactly a groundbreaking insight, is it? We are probably all familiar with pursuing certain activities just because they are fun or meaningful.

The truly fascinating finding came about when Csikszentmihalyi asked his interviewees to describe the enjoyable experiences they had in their activities. Here’s what he found: His interviewees described what they experienced in the same manner, regardless of the activity pursued. The way the climber felt moving up the mountain was identical to how the chess player felt during a close game or the musician composing a new masterpiece. They all described being intensely focused, feeling confident and in control, forgetting about themselves and their problems, losing touch of time, and immensely enjoying themselves—they described the hallmarks of the flow experience. What they did varied; what they experienced was the same.

And what they experienced, many described with the word flow and and through the metaphor of a water current carrying them along. “It was like floating,” one might have said. “I was being carried by the flow,” another. A young poet and rock climber put it as such: “The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself. . . . The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up only to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.” [7]

The word flow recurred spontaneously in many interviewees’ descriptions of what they experienced when they greatly enjoyed themselves during intrinsically motivated activities. And so, Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues used the term flow to name the universal experience they had discovered. [8] That’s the origin story of flow. To put it in a single sentence: The term was coined by Csikszentmihalyi to name the universal state people enter when they enjoy themselves during activities they engage in for their own sake.

As mentioned earlier, Csikszentmihalyi then continued to investigate the flow experience for 40+ years. He quickly learned that the experience was indeed universal—people experience flow all over the world and in all kinds of different activities. He also quickly learned that flow doesn’t just occur in intrinsically motivated activities, but also in extrinsically motivated ones. You can experience flow during a game of chess even if you’re playing primarily to win money or become a world champion. Likewise, you can experience flow on the job even if you’re primarily motivated by money or prestige.

Since its conception in the 1970s, flow has steadily risen in popularity. Thousands of studies and countless books have been and continue to be published on the subject. Flow is sought after by elite athletes, musicians, artists, peak performers, and large corporations all over the world.

But precisely how is flow defined? How does it come about? What does it feel like? That’s what we’ll explore next…

This article is a (slightly adapted) excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow. If you want to be notified when the book is available, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.