(or I am So Into This!)
Release your creative energy and let it flow. Relish the possibilities.
—Nita Leland
Chapter Preview
In this chapter, the framework of psychological flow is utilized to discuss how to promote our full engagement in trip activities and experiences. Flow occurs when we are so completely immersed in what we are doing that we can devote all our effort and attention to our task with no superfluous expenditures of energy. Conditions are then explored that facilitate or impede the creation of flow, as well as strategies travel providers could use to help us achieve flow states.
Engagement and Well-Being
We have talked about different ways in which we might be nudged into states of greater awareness and receptiveness to our surroundings, and we have looked at some of the challenges involved in doing this. The goal is to enable us to be completely present in our environment and fully engaged in our encounters in it. Such engagement has been defined as an important component of well-being, and to experience it can be extremely satisfying. Research, in fact, has shown the power of the right activities to absorb and energize us and facilitate a myriad of positive emotions (Massimini and Carli 1988). These emotions do not consist of short-term or fleeting sensations of pleasure that can come and go quickly, but rather of the deeper and more lasting feelings of contentment and fulfillment that come with doing things we love to do with complete commitment and attention. Let’s consider some more how such states and the positive emotions that accompany them might be achieved in traveling.
Travel and Flow
Travel, as we have seen, gives us opportunities to try new things and interact with the world in ways that are especially meaningful to us. Through this process, a new sense of vigor in our lives can be restored. To consider this more, imagine that we were on vacation paddling a kayak in a beautiful lagoon or taking pictures of a sunset. Imagine, further, that we became so engaged with what we were doing that time for us seemed to disappear and simply fly by. In fact, maybe we became so intrigued by our tasks that we lost consciousness of ourselves and just concentrated on what we were attempting to do, not how we looked doing it. Although working on our tasks took all of our effort and focus, when we were finished, in addition to feeling a bit fatigued, we also felt very energized, alive, and filled with a sense of well-being.
The preceding description portrays a state of being that psychologists have described as a flow state (Massimini and Carli 1988; Csikszentmihalyi 1990). This state occurs when we are so totally in the moment and in sync with what we are doing that we can fully devote all our energy to the task at hand (Jackson 1992). To obtain a mental picture of this, imagine a dancer who is completely immersed in his performance at some moment, a painter who is completely absorbed in the picture she is creating, or a ball player who is not just playing ball but who has become one with the game he is in and seems to exhibit a sense of effortlessness in his play. Similar to a cat in a chase, in these states energy seems to beget energy with no superfluous expenditures, and we become totally consumed by the actions we are taking.
Experiencing flow, thus, consists of a very positive feeling of being completely drawn into and taken up by by what we are doing. The question of relevance here is how we can find these types of flow moments more often when we travel and how travel providers can help us in this task.
While flow can’t be willed into being, conditions can be set up that are likely to either promote or interfere with it occurring (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). For one thing, we know that flow more often occurs when we are doing something active that requires effort rather than participating in more passive activities. Thus, when we are simply sitting in our hotel rooms watching TV or looking out the window daydreaming, we would not be likely to be experiencing flow. Flow involves a more focused kind of trying.
To find flow, we also have to have tasks made available to us that particularly engage us and are at the right level of challenge for our skill level (Moneta and Csikszentmihalyi 1996). Thus, if we are a middle-level tennis player who was looking for a memorable tennis game, we would probably not want to try to play with either a star player or with a person who just started learning tennis who has trouble hitting back simple serves. The first person would be likely to overwhelm us, while the second would probably bore us.
We also would be benefitted if we could find an environment in which we can feel relaxed and at ease and not too self-conscious (Grenville-Cleave 2013). This is particularly true if we are the kind of person who tends to be very self-aware in public. In such a case, having a critical audience watch us as we attempt to learn some difficult new skills would most likely not contribute to our ability to concentrate on what we were doing. Needless to say, negative comparisons are the guaranteed killers of flow.
Finally, flow seems to be more easily achieved when we have clear goals and clear feedback about our performance (Strati, Shernoff and Kackar 2012). If, for example, we were trying to put together floral bouquets in a flower arranging class with no clear objectives and no clear feedback about how well we were doing, we would be apt to soon lose interest in our project. On the other hand, if we had a teacher or a guide who set in place objectives for us, and who gave us clear feedback on how well we were meeting those objectives as well as concrete ideas on what we might do to improve our skills, our chances for staying engaged in our task would increase. Such feedback would be best if it was neither so negative that it demoralized us nor so generally positive that it gave us no specific directions about how to make our flower arrangements better. Thus, after we completed our assignment instead of the teacher saying to us something generally disheartening such as “I don’t think your arrangement works” or something generically supportive such as “That looks great,” it would be better if she gave clear ideas about where and how we might change our work to improve it. For instance, she might say something like, “I think if you added some color by putting in a sprig of these deep crimson berries and then created variations in the height of your flowers, the whole arrangement would be more balanced.”
Helping Travelers Find Flow
Thus, although there are no simple formulas for finding specific kinds of activities and environments that are guaranteed to promote flow, there are certain conditions that can facilitate or hinder the probability of a flow state occurring. Of course, perfect environments that might facilitate achieving a flow state for one person may be different for another person depending on personality profiles and individual strengths and preferences. This again comes down to the idea of fit. For instance, on a personal note, I enjoy both oil painting and playing the mandolin. If I planned to continue to pursue these activities on some vacation, I would much prefer to work one-on-one with a teacher rather than joining a large group or class. I would also hope to have a teacher who had worked with people of many different skill levels, not just with professional artists or musicians. Finally, it would be helpful if the teacher liked to paint still life pictures and was known for being able to give comments to his or her students in a useful but also non-evaluative manner.
The above preferences could be considered my flow profile: other people may well have different preferences. Note that such preferences do not relate to some abstract interests we have such as an in interest in politics or in movies. They are also not statements of things we somewhat like to do or think we should like to do. Rather our flow profiles specify what kinds of tasks completely absorb us while working on them, and what kinds of circumstances tend to be present when this happens. Once we had identified these tasks and our situational requirements for pursuing them, travel staff such as trip planners, hotel concierges, or cruise directors could assist us in finding appropriate places or venues near our destination sites where they might optimally be carried out.
Coming back to my personal case, after I expressed my interest in art and discussed what I was looking for in an art teacher with my travel provider, he or she could tell me about artists in the nearby community who often work at home or who teach still life oil painting to students who are both beginners and more advanced. Perhaps, he or she could additionally share with me any reviews that were available about these artists and inform me about the techniques or methods they use to instruct their students. I might even be provided with some photos of the different artists’ work, if they were available. Reviewing this kind of information would allow me to make more informed choices about the types of teaching venues that would be most likely to work for me, which would considerably add to my ability to find enjoyment and pleasure on my trip.
Questions for Discussion
Please work with the following questions to think more about how we can find activities and experiences on our trips that are engaging and energizing. Draw on your own personal experiences as a traveler and/or any experiences you may have had in the travel industry as you do this.
1. Being energized by a task or finding flow has been described as a sort of effortless effort. What does this mean to you? Have you ever personally experienced such a state? Describe.
2. Do you think typical amenities and services offered in hotels and other types of lodgings (e.g., gyms, pool areas, reading rooms, recreational areas, etc.) are apt to be conducive to the creation of flow? Using some of the ideas presented in this chapter and your own experiences, consider how travel environments could better facilitate flow.
3. How might a hotel concierge or other hotel personnel best work with us to identify activities that would engage us? What would your own flow profile look like?
4. What, in your opinion, is the most common obstacle to finding flow that you and other travelers often face in travel situations? Consider things like physical distractions and noise, crowded conditions, others’ evaluative attitudes, inappropriate challenge levels, and so on.
Notes