In the early ’90s, I encountered a life-changing book by Csíkszentmihályi called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Csíkszentmihályi presented a simple yet engaging concept that one’s life challenges are balanced (or unbalanced) against one’s competencies or skills. If a challenge exceeds a skill, one will feel a sense of anxiety. If a skill exceeds a challenge, one will experience boredom or disengagement.

As an educator, I shared this concept with my students. Csíkszentmihályi‘s premise is that when one’s challenge and one’s skills are in balance, a sense of Flow exists. Often, athletic endeavors are considered a good way to understand Flow. An athlete plays to the level of her or his skill; therefore always experiencing flow.

The same concept can be applied to education in that a learner can come to understand that the skills and challenges are both in the learner’s circle of control. Simply, if the learner’s skills are too great it is up to the learner to increase the challenge. Similarly, if the challenge is to great, (practice-makes-permanent) increase the skill.

Csíkszentmihályi calls it what it is: optimal engagement. As I revisit the concept – it’s still one that has a strong impact on the way that I try to live my life each and every day.

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Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York: Harper and Row