After a great performance, athletes have described a feeling of being \u201cin the zone.\u201d In this state, they feel invincible, as if the game<\/span><\/span><\/a> slowed down, the crowd noise fell silent and they achieved an incredible focus on their mission. What is this Superman-like state and how can players enter it when they most need it?<\/a><\/p>\n

Like the feeling of being moved down a river by the current, this positive groove has been described as a “flow.” In fact, Mihaly Cs\u00edkszentmih\u00e1lyi, psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, coined the term in his 1990 book, \u201cFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience\u201d (Harper & Row, 1990).<\/p>\n

From his years of research, Cs\u00edkszentmih\u00e1lyi developed an entire theory around the concept and applied it not only to sports, but also to work life, education, music and spirituality.<\/p>\n

Cs\u00edkszentmih\u00e1lyi identified nine components of the state of flow. The more of these you can achieve, the stronger your feeling of total control will be.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Challenge-skills balance<\/strong> is achieved when you have confidence that your skills can meet the challenge in front of you.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Action-awareness merging<\/strong> is the state of being completely absorbed in an activity, with tunnel vision that shuts out everything else.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Clear goals <\/span><\/span><\/a><\/strong> come into focus when you know exactly what is required of you and what you want to accomplish.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Unambiguous feedback<\/strong> is constant, real-time feedback that allows you to adjust your tactics. For example, fans and coaches will let you know how you’re doing.<\/a><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Concentration<\/strong> on the task at hand, with laser-beam focus, is essential.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Sense of control<\/strong> is heightened when you feel that your actions can affect the outcome of the game.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Loss of self-consciousness<\/strong> occurs when you are not constantly aware of your success.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 Transformation of time<\/strong> takes place when you lose track of time due to your total focus on the moment.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 Autotelic experience<\/strong> is achieved when you feel internally driven to succeed even without outside rewards. You do something because you love to do it.<\/a><\/p>\n

Flow doesn’t only happen to athletes. In any activity, when you’re completely focused, incredibly productive and have lost track of time, you may be in the flow. You may not be shooting for three, but you can still say you are “in the zone.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on livescience.com<\/a> and was written by Dan Peterson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a great performance, athletes have described a feeling of being \u201cin the zone.\u201d In this state, they feel invincible, as if the game slowed down, the crowd noise fell silent and they achieved an incredible focus on their mission. What is this Superman-like state and how can players enter it when they most need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,6,4],"tags":[19,38,37],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-being-positive","category-stress","tag-athletes","tag-being-positive","tag-stress"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4s1Yj-Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/counseling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}