In his interviews, to describe these optimal states of performance, flow was a term his subjects kept using. When everything was going right, the work was effortless, fluid, and automatic—flowy. So Csikszentmihalyi, in keeping with tradition, renamed “peak experiences,” instead calling them “flow states.” He defined the state as “being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the
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