How to Get in the Zone: 3 Tips for Achieving Flow State

The zone is a positive mental state in which an individual accomplishes a task at a peak performance level. A person in the zone feels as if they’re on autopilot, totally connected to their performance in the present moment, and faces no challenges to accomplishing their goal.

Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi referred to getting in the zone as “the flow” or “flow state” in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and described it as a feeling of total involvement, an “energized focus,” and a level of enjoyment that removes all sense of time or space.

Endurance competitors like triathletes or marathon runners associate getting in the zone with athletic performance. This state is also attainable, however, for individuals who play video games or pursue other involving activities outside of sports performance circles. Entrepreneurs, musicians, actors, writers, and those in academic circles can all get in the zone. Finding flow is also possible in everyday life.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who studied flow states, asserted there were specific criteria for getting in the zone:

• Clear goals: Csikszentmihalyi’s first tenet of flow was to establish a concrete conclusion for the task at hand and a clear idea of how to achieve it. It’s important, however, the individual focuses less on accomplishing the goal and more on enjoying the steps taken to achieve it. The psychologist described getting in the zone as an “autotelic experience”—in other words, the task has a purpose in and not apart of itself.
• Immediate feedback: A person achieves flow when they receive clear and timely feedback about their performance. Experts, peers, and observers can also contribute to the feedback loop, but it’s best if the task itself delivers the best visualization of how well one is doing.
• Sense of balance: Flow occurs when the participant feels a sense of total balance—a “sweet spot”—between the challenges of the task and their particular skill level. The participant completes the task with greater speed, skill, and satisfaction if they believe they are capable of doing it; tasks that are too difficult or too easy take one out of the zone by generating self-consciousness and fear of failure or boredom, respectively.

Here are steps you can take if you want to learn how to get in the zone:

1. 1. Believe in yourself. Self-confidence is the foundation of getting in the zone. When you believe in your skills, you feel safe and capable of accomplishing the task in front of you. If you have a healthy amount of confidence, the experience becomes more rewarding and less of a challenge.
2. 2. Choose the right activity. It’s easier for you to get in the zone when you find a task or experience you enjoy or can visualize an important goal. Involvement in enjoyable work that challenges your skills (or in a simple task that produces a desirable outcome) sparks the total balance that is a major component of getting into and staying in the zone.
3. 3. Focus. Ask any professional athlete: A competition is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. Honing your focus on the goal at hand puts you in the right frame of mind for achieving the zone. Before you begin your work or experience, take a few deep breaths and clear your mind of any thoughts aside from the present moment. It’s natural for your mind to wander, so just bring your attention back to the present task when it does.

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