The Flow State: How to Achieve Peak Performance

 Written by Annalisa Fang (W’26); Edited by Basma Enany (W’26)

How do people like Michael Phelps, Yo-Yo Ma, or Magnus Carlson achieve success in so many high-pressure environments? 

Phelps has talked about how he gets “in the zone” right before every one of his races, Yo-Yo Ma has discussed the importance of practicing regularly from a young age, and Magnus Carlsen cited “determination” as the key to his success. So what do these all have in common?

Everything that they described is part of being in the flow state. Flow is a mental state in which a person has become fully immersed in performing an activity — essentially “being in the zone” — when you’ve become so absorbed with whatever you’re doing that everything else falls away. 

Being in the flow state requires that your mind and body are connected by an immediate feedback loop. Whatever you’re doing needs to have clear goals and rules, and this instant feedback will tell you how well you are doing in reaching those goals.

For example, with every move in chess, you will know whether you’re in a better position to win the game or not. When Michael Phelps competes in the Olympics, he will know, with every stroke, whether he has a better chance of winning the race or not.

However, flow does not require you to become the absolute best at any given activity. You can actually have flow in the tasks of your everyday life.

I grew up in a musical family, performing quite often from a young age. What I’ve learned about flow from my musical endeavors is that flow-producing activities typically require an initial investment of attention in order to later become enjoyable. When you are interested in something, you focus on it, and once you focus attention on something, you will likely become interested in it. For example, when you learn to play an instrument, some initial amount of practice is usually required before you can begin to fully enjoy it.

In addition, in order to enter the flow state, your level of skill and challenge need to match up. This will require you to have and maintain a high level of focus. If you face too difficult a challenge, you could easily feel overwhelmed. But if the challenge is too easy, you will just become bored.

So how often do you think the average person is in flow? For most, it’s likely not often, and for others, possibly never. Mihaly Csikszentmihalhi first coined the term “flow” in 1975 during his study of where happiness comes from, but things have changed significantly in the past 30 years.

Nowadays, most people spend a good chunk of their leisure time using smartphones or computers, technology that has undergone major developments since the concept of flow was first developed. With how easy and accessible smartphones have made entertainment, it might seem unlikely that anyone who has one could ever become bored. 

In reality, the majority of tasks done on a phone are not challenging enough to capture and hold someone’s attention in a meaningful way. Another activity might bring you more happiness, but the reason you do not do that instead is because it requires more effort to get it started in the first place. People’s actions have become much more reactive, and an overall decreasing in happiness can be correlated with more time spent online.

Flow activities require an initial investment of attention in order to later become enjoyable. If someone doesn’t have the energy to overcome that initial obstacle, they will often settle for something more accessible, although perhaps less enjoyable — for example, watching TV or going on social media.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote in one of his books Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, “It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.” 

Striving to find flow throughout your life, in tasks of everyday life as well as high-pressure performances, will ultimately help bring you lasting satisfaction and fulfillment.