The Eight Components of Enjoyment

A Clear Goal

1

Knowing what you want to do in any given moment is a key element in a flow experience. That’s why games like tennis or chess easily become flow experiences. The rules and goals are very clear. When you are doing an activity where the goals are more vague, you can create specific goals and intentions for yourself. Any activity can be broken down into major goals and sub-goals.

Feedback

2

You need to be able to tell if you are getting closer to your goal or not. Again, in a sport like tennis, you can see immediately if you hit the ball well. When playing a musical instrument you can hear if you hit the wrong note. Almost any kind of feedback can be enjoyable if it is related to your goal. In a conversation with a friend, his or her response becomes your feedback. When you are working against a deadline you can measure progress in terms of the amount of work you have completed in a certain time period.

Challenges Match Skill

3

It is important that what you do matches ability to do it. If the task is too easy, you will become bored. If the task is too difficult you will become frustrated. The best place to be is somewhere between those two states where there is a balance between your skills and the demands of the activity. You must pursue attainable but challenging goals.

Concentration

4

In daily life your attention is often split among different distractions as you think about several things at once. In flow, this split attention into a single beam of concentrated energy. You are able to achieve much more since all your energy is devoted to the task at hand. You feel a sense of ease and inner harmony.

Focus

5

With this component of the flow experience operating for you, your worries and problems seem to fade away as you disapper into your work or activity. Everyday frustrations are removed from your attention. This brings a great sense of relief as you operate fully in the present moment.

Control

6

When you are in flow you feel that you can be in control of your actions and experience. Of course you are not in complete control beacause that would mean that your skills were higher than your challenges. But you sense the possibility of control. You are on an edge where control is possible.

Loss of Self-Consciousness

7

Thinking and worrying about yourself can consume an tremendous amount of psychic energy. In flow, there is no room for this relentless self-monitoring. You are so involved, committed and concentrated that you forget yourself. You become part of all that surrounds you. Loss of self consciousness leads to a sense of self-transcendence. You go beyond the boundaries of your self-concept.

Transformation of Time

8

In flow, time seems to adapt itself to your individual experience. Hours may seem like minutes when you are so absorbed in whatever you are doing that you don’t notice time is passing. Or, in contrast, seconds may seem to last for minutes, as in the case of a ballerina doing a pirouette on her toes or a firefighter pulling a child from a smoke-filled building